Hola todos,
This previous weekend, I went on a trip to La Serena with my program. It is about six hours north. We took the night bus at 12:45AM which was not fun. Luckily I slept a little; no red sign to keep me up. We arrived at 7AM, went to the hostal and ate breakfast. Afterwards, we went to Vicuña, which is about an hour east from La Serena in the Elqui Valley. When we arrived we put our belongings in the hostal and then went right to a museum of Gabriela Mistral. She was quite a women and had quite an influence in Chile.
After the museum, we headed to a little pisco factory. (Pisco is the popular alcohol here. I personally find it repulsive, but it was interesting to see.) Because this factory wasn't that big, the tour wasn't very long and after looking at the the machines they use, inhaling the scent of the horrific pisco, and then taste-testing it (it is about 12PM at this point) we were off to go eat lunch. Thank goodness.
For lunch, we went to a nice restaurant where I got something called Lagunista which is beef with tomato, mushroom, onion etc. with a stew-like consistency. However, the best part of the meal was something called the Elqui Pisco. As deceiving as the name seems, it thankfully did not have any pisco in it. It was a roasted piece of goat cheese with sun-dried tomatoes and honey drizzled over the top. Wonderful, incredible, brilliant, I will make it as soon as possible. We had the choice of whether we wanted to get ice cream or go to the other pisco factory. Obviously you all know which one I voted for. We went to the ice cream place and there were some very interesting flavors including Pisco Sour which is the drink here. I tried it, not the best thing I've ever had. I got Harina Tostada, which translates to Toasted Flour. I don't understand the whole toasted flour idea, but it was good.
We went into town and had about an hour to explore before we went to the observatory! The town was nice; it had a beautiful view of the mountains. At 6:30, we headed to the observatory. By the time we got there, it was quite dark. We went into the white dome building and watched a few clips on planets, stars etc., before going out to look at the stars. Did you know, there is a star (the biggest star discovered thus far) that would take 1,100 years to circle the entire thing (via common airplane)! Crazy, right? The craziest thing however is that it is so far that we cannot even see a glimpse of it! My mind half blew up. We looked at the moon, some stars, and then went into the building in which they had the large telescope. We looked at the Milky Way and some other stars. It was so cool! At around 9PM we returned to the hostal for a quick dinner.For dinner we had toasted bread with cheese, avocado, and tomato. Perfect dinner. Afterwards, we lit a fire in the furnace and we all passed out. We were going to wake up at 8:30AM to go to another, more acclaimed museum of Gabriela Mistral and then another, bigger and famous pisco factory.
At 9AM we ate breakfast and headed out. The museum was very interesting and they had a nice garden outside; it was such a beautiful day that we all laid outside for some time. We then continued our journey to the Capel Pisco Plant. Capel is basically the ruler of pisco here. Capel stands for Cooperativa Agrícola Pisquera Elqui Limitada (Cooperative Pisco Farm Elqui Limited). We went and saw the factory, the machines they use and the gallons upon gallons of pisco they had there. I wanted to die of repulsion. We learned about how it's made and how much they sell of it each year. A lot. We then tried some more pisco, ugh, but hey, carpe diem. Afterwards, we had a quick lunch and went to the bus station to return home, at about 3:30PM. They bus ride wasn't very fun because since it wasn't really nighttime, we didn't sleep much. Instead we watched Limitless and Skyfall. (I did want to see Skyfall). We arrived back to Santiago at 11PM.
It was a fun trip, and I am so happy I made it up to the Elqui Valley. It was absolutely beautiful. Also, I can now say that I have experienced pisco for all it's worth. However, apparently Elqui Valley has a lot of great vineyards. Why pisco factories?? Either way, this was our final trip all together and it was kind of sad to say goodbye to everyone. But, we have all had a fun journey.
Below are some picture:
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| This is a view of the lake and mountains in Vicuña |
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| This is the moon seen through the telescope |
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| What I looked like after the pisco tasting |
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| Pisco pisco pisco! |
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| The king of piscos |
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