Travelers chasing the darkening sun
All it took was a few moments of darkness for Peter den Hartog to see the world in a new light. And to want to see more of it.
“After I saw my first total solar eclipse in 1999 in Hungary, it changed my perspective on life and nature,” said den Hartog, 39, of San Francisco. “I thought: If something this beautiful exists in nature, what else must be out there?”
Den Hartog, who plans to be camping with 40 friends by the Snake River in Wyoming when the narrow path of a rare total solar eclipse crosses the U.S. from Oregon to South Carolina on Aug. 21, is among a growing number of travelers who hit the road to see the world turn dark. Most eclipsophiles will say, however, that while the goal is to witness a phenomenon that takes place in outer space, a byproduct has been experiencing a good deal more of the planet.
Pooling resources with friends, den Hartog has arranged total eclipse trips to the Yangtze River in China, the Sahara Desert in Libya, western Mongolia and Zambia. “You go to a country and make it an interesting trip, so it’s a once-in-a-lifetime experience that you might not otherwise do but for the eclipse.”
“Total solar eclipses are great excuses to travel,” said Lynn Anderson, 71, a retired science teacher from Healdsburg. Anderson, who’s gone to nine total solar eclipses, prefers tour groups and, as a result, has seen the terra cotta warriors in China, the pyramids in Egypt, Uluru (Ayers Rock) in Australia, and lions, elephants, hippos, kudos, crocodiles and ostriches on a jeep safari in Zimbabwe. He was “clouded out” in 1999, but said, “What the heck, we were in Austria.”
“Eclipses often are visible from exotic places or from the ocean, where people see them from cruise ships,” said Marco Velli, a professor of space physics at UCLA and senior scientist in heliophysics for the NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory. Velli studies space plasma physics and has a personal interest in the history of physics and astronomy.
“Since the dawn of history,” he said, people freaked at eclipses. “The sun’s so bright that you don’t notice it’s getting dimmer until close to totality,” when the moon totally hides the sun and the skies suddenly turn deep indigo.”
“With a total solar eclipse, there’s a black hole in the sky with white flames around it,” said Eva-Lynne Leibman, 63, of San Francisco. “It connects you with the most primitive of human beings.” She’s seen five eclipses in Mexico, the Galápagos, Brazil and Madagascar, but one of her most memorable was during a cargo-ship voyage to a tiny island near Fiji, where town officials dressed in blazers, sarongs and flip-flops greeted them.
Eva-Lynne’s daughter, Helen Leibman, 26, is a promotional marketer who joined her parents on three eclipse trips. She said, “The value of eclipse travel is not just the places you go but the people you meet.”
Bob Garfinkle, 70, a retired technical writer from Union City, has been with his family on five total-eclipse trips, to Mexico, Zimbabwe, the Black Sea, Montserrat in the Caribbean and the Mediterranean Sea off the island of Rhodes. On a cruise ship near Cabo San Lucas, sunlight suddenly returned after seven minutes of totality’s darkness.
“Five or six dolphins leapt out of the sea and did backflips, like at SeaWorld,” Garfinkle said. “We didn’t know they did that in the wild.”
Garfinkle’s daughter, Annmarie Latorre-Garfinkle, 31, who saw her first total solar eclipse in Mexico when she was 5, said her fondest memory is of going to an orphanage in Zimbabwe and laughing with the other children. They climbed a nearby hill and looked down on a valley while the sky grew dark and the animals silent. Then one local started singing. Another joined in. Soon many people sang.
“It was spontaneous and magical,” she said.
The Aug. 21 eclipse, although visible from places nearby, prime spots may be difficult to get to. Michael Zeiler, a geographical information systems analyst with ESRI,
a mapping-technology company, said between 1.85 million and 7.4 million people will head to the path of totality — not counting the 12.25 million already living there. Roads will be jammed. Most hotels are sold out, but private landowners are creating short-term campgrounds. Zeiler’s suggestions: Arrive at least a day ahead. Bring everything you’ll need for three days, including tents, sleeping bags and food.
And remain flexible. Peter den Hartog noted, “The eclipse brings you somewhere, so enjoy it.”