Advertisement
la serena bus station map
map at the bus station at la serena La Serena
Midway through the rain, we decided to flee to the desert to the north. Six hours up the Pan-American Highway is the coastal town of La Serena. La Serena has the distinction of being one of the oldest cities in Chile and has a slew of churches that show off hundreds of years of architectural style. The older ones are squatty fortresses that bear witness to the locals’ historical dissatisfaction with Spanish conquistadors leading them to raze the town in the 16th century shortly after its founding. After being rebuilt, it was razed again a hundred years later by an English pirate named Sharpe. Since then, it has managed to avoid being burned to the ground and instead grown fat on copper, silver, agriculture, and more recently, tourists.
Valle de Elqui: Pisco
East of La Serena is the semi arid but apparently quite fertile Valle de Elqui. Though the mountains hemming it in are a lifeless dusty brown covered in brown green cactus, the valley floor is a striking contrast. Lining the road and stretching across the entire valley are vineyards growing muscatel grapes. In May, the vines are red and gold and neatly partitioned off by huge
valle de elqui area
valle de elqui or maybe cochiguaz, they kind of look the same. white plastic sheets that stand 20 feet high and stretch from the road to the steep slope of the mountains. Apparently, they are not there for the aesthetics of color contrast and symmetry, but rather to protect the vines from wind. Though there is a vineyard somewhere in the valley that makes wine, the real business of the valley is making Pisco. The word pisco is derived from the Quechwa word pisqui that means ‘little bird’, which has zero to do with booze near as I can figure. However, Pisco is also the name of a port city in Peru where sailors once bought the cheap potent liquor; thus, giving it its name. Pisco is the national liquor of Peru and Chile and most of the time is a little like drinking jet fuel though connoisseurs argue that it is elegant liquor with complex subtleties. Both countries are adamant about proprietorship. Peru has been pressing the case with WIPO, the World Intellectual Property Organization, to assert its intellectual property rights so as to gain sole domain over the name Pisco. Chile, who could give a damn what some busy body international body has to say, renamed a town in the
valle de elqui area
kelli, markus, carly and becky valley Pisco Elqui and consumes a prodigious amount of the stuff. There are a couple of distilleries in the valley that offer tours where someone rambles on about the virtues of the muscatel grape and the selection and production process before getting to the point and pouring you free samples. Like wine vineyards, but with a little less of the pretension since they are serving up moonshine, everyone tries to drink the pisco and make discerning comments about the oaky finish or buttery body. The Distillery Mistral is in the town of Pisco Elqui and quite fancy. More importantly, after the talk, they give you enough free samples to convince you that Pisco is on everyone’s Christmas list. Five bottles of the premium pisco were bought for the ludicrously low price of 20 luca (about 40$US). The distillery used to bear the name of its founder (a mouthful with each of the three names beginning with ‘R’), but was renamed Mistral in homage to Gabriel Mistral who was born in the valley. Gabriel Mistral is one of Chile’s two Nobel Prize winning poets, the other being Pablo Neruda. Consequently, the valleys 4 towns are littered with busts and statues of
Destileria Mistral
Orginally Destileria Tres R's...upgraded to take advantage of the popular poet the poetess. Almost without exception, they portray her as a dour and gloomy school marm. Apparently sculpting someone with a smile or a personality more interesting than a rock is undignified.
Valle de Elqui: Observatories
While the valley floor is ideal for growing grapes and brewing pisco, the tops of the mountains are where the world goes to build observatories. Three mammoth telescopes sit above the valley on different peaks doing astronomy stuff for Europe and the USA. The Chilean government, short on funds but rich in sky, struck a deal with international astronomical interests to let them build observatories tax free in exchange for the right to use them. Catching on to the ‘tourists can’t do this where they are from and the stars don’t look like this there either’ phenomena, the valley’s biggest town, Vacuna, built the Mamalluca Observatory to accommodate the rising tide of tourists. Though the telescope is only 30 cm (the ones on the mountain tops for real scientists include one that is 4 meters), the two hour lecture (in English thankfully) and chance to look into the night sky was phenomenal. We looked at stars, clusters, galaxies and constellations, but the most impressive
sampling the goods
becky and colin tasting pisco was Saturn. It was about the size of a quarter in the telescope, and as color apparently doesn’t travel well, was pale yellowish. Outside under the very milky Milky Way, the astronomer guide traced the constellations with a green laser in the night sky. Interestingly, while most ancient cultures drew stick pictures by connecting the dots in the sky, the Incan constellations were constructed out of the darkness between the stars. Nevertheless, looking up into the fiery clarity of the night sky, one can well understand why folks used to spend a lot of time looking there.
Valle de Cochiquaz
Branching off from the Valle de Elqui at the town of Pisco Elqui is the Valle de Chochiquaz. I am not sure what to make of the juxtaposition of this particular Valle’s claim to fame with the presence of world class astronomical observatories. Either there is something to what I often confuse with the rantings of lunatics or the cosmos really does appreciate irony. Maybe both. Anyway, so the story goes that during the previous age of Pisces, the geomagnetic center was, of course, in Tibet at 30 N latitude. Then with the beginning of the Age of Aquarius,
carly on a big rock
carly on a rock in cochiguaz it switched to 30 S latitude, which runs through the Valle de Cochiguaz. Among those is the know, which in this case I doubt includes Astrophysicists, geomagnetic centers are the earth’s chakras, energy points associated with the human body in Hinduism, Tantra, and Yoga, and points where spiritual energy is concentrated. Somehow, in ways not completely clear, magnetism and spirituality are linked (clearly this idea is no more whacky than the large amount of pap that is fairly standard in mainstream religion. As an aside, I would recommend googling the Rapture Index for some really insanity). Consequently, in the 60s various groups began moving to the Valle to set up camp and take advantage of the energy. What is curious is that in the 80s there was a magnetic map made of the Earth and damned if there wasn’t a focal point of magnetic energy between 27 and 32 latitude. Right in the middle is the Elqui Valley. In addition to the mystic, yogic, meditative set, there are tarot card readers, massage therapists, aura cleaners and the like. Not surprisingly, the area is also extremely popular with the OVNIs (objecto volando no identificado or UFOs) crowd as well. Throw in a few hippies with drums camping down by the Rio Mago (Magic River), locals selling herbal remedies, some upscale tourist hotels including a few geodescent domes that look a bit like lunar landing modules, a little environmentalism, some grass, the Stone of the Guanaco, a boulder somewhere in the valley purportedly covered in ancient ceremonial petroglyphs (unfortunately heard about but not seen), the befuddling night sky and call it Valle de Cochiguaz.
Advertisement
Tot: 0.22s; Tpl: 0.02s; cc: 18; qc: 81; dbt: 0.0892s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.2mb