We left La Serena just as we found it.
Very quickly.
I kid! (A little.) We had a quick breakfast at the hostel, met some of the other guests, (turns out there were several people there who just happened to be in La Serena days before the eclipse.) and left the place behind for our next stop.
Pisco Elqui.
A tiny, tiny village up in the mountains east of La Serena, known for the vineyards and pisco. (A type of drink made in Peru and Chile. There’s some sort of rivalry going on there, and apparently a past Chilean president purposefully renamed this town Pisco to preserve Chile’s right to call the drink Pisco. It’s fascinating.)
But to get to Pisco Elqui, we first had to go 2 hours outside of La Serena, past Vicuna, and up and around several mountains, past several tiny villages and finally arrive in the tiny streets embedded into a mountain.
I’d be lying if it wasn’t my favorite stop of the trip so far.
The Valley of Elqui is just… this amazing place. We first stopped at a Pisco distillery but decided against the tour after much hemming and hawing by yours truly. So we headed to the town square of Pisco Elqui proper. The town is tiny, and yet the square was bustling. Stalls were set up outside of this church, and there was even performances to be seen. We had lunch at this amazing restaurant down the street where it was outside underneath clear skies and a cool breeze.
And despite
OH MY GOD. There’s a dog at my Airbnb and she is FREAKING OUT.
I cannot concentrate!
The Airbnb is lovely besides this dog.
Anyways. To make this short because I’m wondering if my laptop is making a highpitch noise she can hear???
Elqui was our all time favorite place so far. It’s a quaint picturesque village that is worth a trip back in the future. Even after I accidentally went down a one way street, the locals were helpful and patient as I got turned around (NOT easy with how narrow the streets were!)
The drive in was just as pretty as yesterday. Except now we were in the mountains, and there was another instance where we drove through a tunnel and BAM there’s a beautiful reservoir with turquoise blue waters and dappled sunlight bouncing off the waves.
I noticed that this area just seems way more excited about the eclipse than some of the places in America were 2 years ago.
Every town has signs, billboards of the eclipse and it’s info dot the roadside, merchandise is aplenty, and the pisco distilleries had special eclipse brands.
We’ve now arrived at Punto de Choros-well a little cabin outside of the tiny village. We go to see it tomorrow before the eclipse and if we’re lucky, we’ll catch a boat to see the penguins before we need to settle down to wait.
Dog is still going, and now she’s hitting the patio?? (She’s sleeping outside).
At the risk of being murdered, I’m going to poke my head out.
**This blog post was written day of, and I might make some edits now that I can add stuff, and now that there's not a dog going crazy.