La Serena y la Valle del Elqui

Monday morning we left the Hostel Forestal in Santiago for La Serena, 500 km north, on the coast. Pato at the hostel told us that it is a 'beautiful colonial town'... Maybe colonial, but certainly not one that I would have noticed if it hadn't been mentioned...maybe because I have been to Central America already? Not sure. Maybe people have funny taste. The lady at the house where we stayed in La Serena recommended that we went to the beach La Herradura for a swim, and it turns out that it is really ugly and you certainly cannot swim in it, not with a gigantic tanker sitting in the middle of it loading iron mineral!!! And then the Argentinians we met told us that the good beaches are back at La Serena!!! Never mind, it was a wasted day to La Herradura but then the only real reason why we went to La Serena was to do an astronomy tour. The hills around La Serena are famous for their observatories, some of which can only be looked at, while in others they let you use the telescopes > that's the whole point, isn't it???!!! So we went to Collowara - we wanted to go to Mammaluca but it had been rented out for the whole week by a group of Brasilian astronomists. Tour left at 7 pm, to get up there for 9 and then back at midnight. Well, at the beginning I was sceptical, I thought it was all a tourists' set up, but in fact from up the observatory hill you could see the MILKY WAY!!!! And this with a naked eye, without the telescope. Just incredible! We watched an introductory movie and then moved on to the telescope. They showed us Jupiter, a few costellations (Chinese to me, I have no fantasy), and then Saturn. SATURN!!! When I looked in the telescope it seemed like a cartoon drawing, white with its ring just perfect like in the poster drawings! Surreal. So it was a good experience, thanks to Gregory who insisted to go.

From La Serena we decided to spend 3 nights up in the Elqui valley, which is the valley in Chile where they grow the grapes to make PISCO - see cocktail PISCO SOUR, made with pisco, lemon and sugar (in Peru they add egg white and sometimes in Chile too). Beautiful valley with lots of vineyards and small villages with pictoresque church and arid mountains all around it - and the first cactuses!

So here we are, in Pisco Elqui, we are the only guests at the Hotel Elqui, where we own the whole top floor of the ancient wooden hotel - very nice! The village only counts with 1000 inhabitants and we are out of season, so it is really the ideal spot to chill out away from people. The hotel also has 3 swimming pools, only problem is that they are not being used by anybody and so are full of leaves and insects... But nevertheless the place is lovely. Here's some evidence:

Gregory at the observatory

Elqui-pisco valley

Pisco Elqui downtown restaurant