Region de Coquimbo

Valle d’Elqui

From La Serena we made a trip to the Elqui Valley. A nice little village surrounded from the Andes. This valley is famous for its very dry weather and for the many grapes plantation to make the famous Pisco (Chilean schnapps). We walked to the oldest distillery of Los Nichos and could see how they produce the Pisco. At the end, we could taste two different types of Pisco. Unfortunately, there was no tour at this time, but lucky as we usually are, there was a Chilean girl with two German friends, and she showed us around and told us all the important things about the Pisco. In the evening, we found a cosy restaurant for having traditional Chilean food again (pastel del choclo). This dish is made of corn and mixed together with egg, mushrooms, chicken and tomatoes. It tastes like “Polenta”, just that it is baked with cheese on the top. In the evening we had a private tour in astronomy. We went up on a hill to an observatory and had the occasion to see the breath taking starry sky in winter on the southern hemisphere. It was the most impressive sky we’ve ever seen. Milky way was visible so clearly with on its one end showing Southern cross star formation including Alpha cross, which is the brightest blue star in our galaxy. Antaris is the oldest star in our galaxy. We can distinguish it shining in a red colour. It forms the heart of the scorpion star sign. There are around 500’000 stars in our galaxy with an average distance to earth of 500 light years. So, when we’re looking into the sky, we can actually see the past. We could even see stars of another galaxy. Of course, we could also made heaps of wishes with all those shooting stars passing. Our solar system has a diameter of 7.5 light hours, which is nothing compared to the distance of certain stars. We could feel that while seeing Jupiter and Saturn moving through the telescope. It was sooo amazing! Jupiter’s 2 black tails and even a storm in form of a red dot on its surface were visible. Saturn was the best! We could really make the difference of the planet as a bowl and its flat tail all around. Just magnificent! We were overwhelmed by these impressions. He told us about 18’000 more planets in our galaxy similar to Solar system. And beside our milky way galaxy, astronomists talk about 100’000 more galaxies somewhere up there.

The next day we did a nice bike tour to Horcon, a small town close to Pisco Elqui. Actually we wanted to visit the Horcon market, but sadly the market is closed every Monday….. ! Back in Pisco Elqui we took the Bus to La Serena. There we booked a nice Hostel (El Punto) close to the city centre. It is a very pretty place with a small restaurant inside. On our way out, we met a very ‘’special’’ swiss guy. He worked in this hostel for the last 7 months. After our delicious dinner, we booked our flight to the Iguazu falls.

La Serena

After a great breakfast (Desayuno) we explored the City La Serena. We walked to the beach and to the old light tower, which was beautiful due to the perfect weather. The city is cute with a lot of shops and cafés. Finally, Claudia found new sneakers!! We had Spaghetti and Cesar Salad for our lunch (Almuerzo) in a nice café. They served cafés with the cutest foam-drawings on top that we’ve ever seen. Later we took the bus to Caldera, a quiet little town close to the famous beach Bahia Inglesa. We had a great hostel with our own apartment.