Category Archives: Solar Eclipse Travel

Pasaporte, por favor

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Step one: find a flight. Check. Step two: now what? Every hotel room had been snapped up months, nay, years ago by tour organizations and more skillful chasers. An entirely different travel agent—children, a travel agent was once the person who Googled your flights before Expedia—tried to secure a place for us to stay.

The Mexican government wisely decreed that no travelers would be allowed to board any aircraft into their country without proof of lodging in hand, to prevent people from doing exactly what we were attempting—show up with our backpacks in Todos Santos and flop where we could.

We eventually made arrangements with a hotel in Cabo San Lucas so we were allowed to enter Mexico, but the centerline was where we needed to be. The hotel in Todos (rumored to be the original Hotel California in the Eagles’ song) was booked to capacity long ago.

There was unsubstantiated hearsay of a condo further north (that required an expensive rental car to get to the eclipse), waiting lists on cruise ships, friends-of-friends with expat ranch houses, and a hotel with bare beachfront for rent. Someone now long forgotten suggested a destination we were delighted to settle on: pitching a tent on the grounds of “El Zapote”, an alternative co-op an hour west of La Paz in Todos Santos, just a short 1/2 mile hike to the water and prime viewing of The Big One.

As it turned out, the expected gridlocked highways and chaotic crowds were overestimated. The Mexican government, various authorities, newspapers and science magazines cautioned that an exaggerated 120,000 tourists would be crushing Mexican resources that week in July. Travelers were advised about stern checkpoints that would allow a random number of visitors past undisclosed points, and warned so strongly against the possibility of being stranded without petrol on a remote Baja road that many chasers were frightened into choosing Hawaii—where the clouds rolled in on July 11 (as well as airborne particulates from volcanic eruption) that obscured totality for many.

We flew in a couple of days before the eclipse and partied pretty hardy in Cabo, the nearby tourist town. The year of my first TSE I was 26 years old, sporting big 90s eyeglasses, pale legs, and a dweeby mop of curly hair under an unflattering crusher hat.

In advance of every eclipse, the local government distributes safety information which is always a hoot to read. “Viewing through balloons and black plastic bags es muy peligroso!”

 

No room in the inn

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I started planning far too late, as I only heard about the event for the first time in January 1991, when a fellow Rotarian approached me during our morning meeting with a folded copy of Discover. Inside was Bob Berman’s “Night Watchman” astronomy column and his article “The Great Baja Eclipse”.

Bob described “chasers”—lunatics (literally) who traveled the world to stand for a few scant minutes in the shadow of the moon. I recall the phrase “better than sex” was used.

The Great One of 1991 was less than a year away, and I decided there and then I’d be attending—though everyone else in the world had already booked and confirmed their travel plans. In May I was still scrambling for transportation and accommodations. Eclipse mania had swept the country and every flight, hotel room, youth hostel, B&B, barn and backyard was reserved—even books about the eclipse were impossible to find.

As I lived in Southern California, the logical and subsequently luckier viewing destination was Mexico. A San Diego travel agent—remember those?—took pity on me (or tired of my relentless begging) and made it his quest to put me in the shadow. He worked zealously to find a flight for my then-boyfriend and I—hello Tom at Hillcrest Travel, thinking of you fondly wherever you are—and after a long waitlist period eventually sold us roundtrip tickets from San Diego to Cabo San Lucas.

Above: Tee logo

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Surprisingly, fares today are about the same or lower

Astronomer luggage 

Haircut, 1991

 

 

The Big One

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“The Greatest Eclipse” it was called. The December ’91 issue of Sky and Telescope extolled it as the “Grandest Eclipse—Science and Spectacle”, while restrained Astronomy slightly under-raved with “The Eclipse of the Decade”. It was “The Big One”—and my first one.

It may have been a mistake to start chasing with the unsurpassable Eclipse of 1991, which was superlative in a dozen ways. With a duration of almost seven minutes, totality was about as long as technically possible—the lengthiest TSE anyone alive or recently dead had ever seen.

It was conveniently located, with easy access to every North American who could scrape together the modest funds to travel to the shadow. Plentiful and inexpensive tourist flights to Hawaii AND Mexico were available; not what you’d describe as a hardship destination. The path of totality crossed many populated cities all the way to Brazil, and clear summer weather along the centerline was likely. No eclipse since then has been as popular and as much of a CF to visit without booking through a tour group.

Above and below: Path of totality, 1991

Below: Geek mags go giddy

 

 

Eclipse chasing is about travel.

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It’s about the sights you’ll see before and after your two minutes in the shadow. A TSE brings you to places you never thought you wanted to go. Bolivia ranked about number 6,012 on my travel destination bucket list, but it turned out to be one of the most awesome af vacations of my life. It was solely because of the eclipse that I ventured there.

I’m not an astronomer, not even close. (I can locate the Big Dipper in the night sky, and…that’s it.) This site skims some pop science but mostly focuses on the travel opportunities of an eclipse adventure, and the people and places you might share the experience with when you travel to a TSE.

Above: “Space Watchers” by Gene Faulkner. Photo taken during the Perseid meteor shower, Ocotillo Wells, California

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First, you’ll need to scan some books. Try this very old and excellent primer by Bryan Brewer (and Phil Harrington’s “Eclipse!”)

Observation tools: all you need.

Join the club

 

 

 

This looks like something you would do…

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…said my friend David, at the La Jolla Sunrise Rotary meeting, as he handed me a copy of Discover magazine.

In it: Bob Berman’s “Night Watchman” column about the upcoming Great Eclipse of 1991.

“Rainbows, the Northern Lights, good sex—all nothing,” he wrote, quoting a traveler who had recently seen a total eclipse of the sun. “Nothing compares with totality.” I still have that article, one of the most accurate and beautifully written descriptions of what it feels like in the shadow of a total solar eclipse (TSE). There really is “a powerful presence that transcends the visual beauty.”

I hadn’t thought much about eclipses before or realized there was such a thing as “eclipse chasing”, but that morning at the Rotary meeting, within seconds, I knew I was in. And I subliminally grokked that I was already a member of an eccentric international family who would share the urge to sacrifice personal resources—cash, spare time, family obligations, sometimes even health—to stand in the umbra of totality.

Above: Totality by Fred Espenak, 1973

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Chasers make headlines

50-year vacation planner

Presenting about eclipse travel at community clubs (and at Winter Star Fest in Washington, 1993)

 

Eclipse t-shirt quilt!

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Eclipse quilt front

If you’re an eclipse chaser, you probably have a t-shirt commemorating each one. They pile up, don’t they? I’ve only been to six totalities but decided it was time to have my tees made into a quilt.

Yes, this is a thing. Any repetitive behavior that generates t-shirts—marathon running, attending the Sturgis rally, visiting Hard Rock Cafes—can be commemorated with a quilt made from the associated shirts you never wear but can’t bear to part with.

HOW AWESOME DID THIS TURN OUT? I was planning to sew it myself, but realized after I cut the shirts into squares that I had neither the skills nor the tools to proceed. Enter Master Quilt Maker Diane Ottenfeld of Bend, Oregon—a lovely local lady whose number I got from the fancy quilt shop in town.

Diane specializes in creating custom t-shirt (and necktie) quilts, and quilt completion and repair. She finished the quilt I started and worked with me to select the background fabric to tie it all together: blue—for the sky and sea—and yellow for Sol.

Eclipse quilt back

For the back she used a fabric souvenir banner I found in a village market in Madagascar in 2001. And look how the stitching on the Egypt square is a flaming sun.

Here’s her contact information. You’re welcome!

Diane Ottenfeld

541-318-7425

dddianeo@gmail.com