The port of Coquimbo is the gateway to La Serena,
founded in 1544. Located in the transition zone between Chile's Atacama Desert
and the country's fertile central valley, La Serena is a popular holiday
resort. The nearby Elqui Valley is an agricultural center famed for grapes,
papaya and cherimoya. Fed by 3 major rivers, the area’s land is perfect for
agriculture and its fruit is shipped from Coquimbo throughout the country and
elsewhere.
Our tour for today took us to LaSerena and to the
Elqui Valley to visit a pisco distillery.
As usual the early morning hours met us with fog in the port city. Within an hour, we were out in the
countryside and the fog was lifting. The
temperatures turned hot once again.
We drove over an hour to reach the Elqui Valley. It is in the foothills of the Andes
Mountains. This area is sunny for about
347 days a year. I believe our guide
said that it only rains about 3 days a year.
Well, the grapes love this weather.
There are miles and miles of vineyards.
Most of the grapes are used for making Pisco, the most popular Chilean
drink. It is a type of brandy that is
distilled from wine. Only 5% of the
pisco is exported; the rest stays in Chile and they make a lot of it! We stopped at the largest pisco distillery in
the area for a tour and learned how it is made, and then, of course, we were
offered a sample. We thought the very
popular Pisco Sour drink tasted a lot like a Margarita with the lemon/lime sour.
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| Photos at the distillery |
We stopped in the city of Vicuna, the birthplace of
Gabriela Mistral who was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1945. She was the first Latin American to receive a
Nobel Prize and there is a museum to honor her.
Our next stop was at a nearby restaurant that uses
solar ovens to bake breads, cook local dishes, and heat water. The sun bakes the food at a temperature of
185 degrees. It takes about 2 hours to
bake a loaf of bread and 11 minutes to heat a liter of water.
The houses in this area away from the city are
nothing to brag about. The outsides have
corrugated metal roofs and they all look very run down. However, we did see some houses that have a
satellite dish on the roof!
It was a long drive down the mountains back to La
Serena where we stopped at the central Plaza de Armas. It is a busy marketplace filled with vendors
selling all sorts of junque for souveniers and artisans featuring copper and
silver jewelry, glass works and ceramics.
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| Elqui Valley view |
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| Raisens drying in the sun |
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| The Marketplace |
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| Typical houses in LaSerena |
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