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Hello peoples!
After Valparaíso, we headed to Pisqo Elqui, a town in the Elqui Valley about 7 hours north of Valparaíso. It rained for our entire drive there and that night, too. This meant snow on the mountains around Pisquo Elqui and cold, cold temperatures that first night. Luckily, the guy at the hotel leant us an "estufita" (heater).
The town of Pisquo Elqui is probably the smallest town we´ve stayed in thus far. It was very relaxing. We were the only people staying at our hotel the first night (23rd). The next day was gorgeous and sunny. We walked around town, enjoying the views of the vineyards and the newly snow-covered mountains.
All of the restaurants around town are at least partially outdoors because it is usually quite hot around here. The dining areas of the restaurants have roofs and sometimes partial walls. This is probably fine most of the year and was very pleasant during the day, but at night the best seats were by the fire.
Our second day in town (25th), we awoke early and hiked uphill along a horse path for panoramic views of the valley. Back in town, we had breakfast
at our hotel. After breakfast we toured the pisco plant across the street from our hotel, Tres Erres. Tres Erres is a brand that has been produced in the Elqui Valley for over one hundred years.
Pisco is a brandy-like liquor produced in Chile and other parts of South America. It is a by-product of wine production. In order to produce pisco, one must first produce wine. The Tres Erres pisco plant uses moscat grapes because they are more aromatic. The grapes are crushed and the juice is fermented same as for wine-making. After the wine is ready, the alcohol is distilled out of the wine. This means boiling the wine in big copper pots and cooling the steam (alcohol) that is produced as a result. The non-alcoholic portion is used as fertilizer. The alcohol is transfered into oak barrels for a year (Tres Erres uses older barrels to preserve more of the flavor of the grape). After a year, the alcohol is diluted with distilled water to make different grades (30-50 percent alcohol) of pisco.
From Pisco Elqui, we got on an overnight bus to Calama. They fed us well and the ride was comfortable. Everything was
going fine until the bus broke down the next morning. The plan was to wait for other buses from the same company that passed by to pick up passengers from our bus and continue the journey. This, of course, depended on the other buses having room. The alternate plan was to wait for a mechanic to come and fix the bus. Well, after some waiting, a bus did come by, but it only had room for two passengers. So most of us had to wait some more. A couple of people got impatient and hitch-hiked. After a total of just over two hours, another bus came along with room for everyone. This bus was headed to Chuquicamata after Calama. This worked out perfectly because we wanted to visit the mine.
Codelco, the national copper company, runs the largest open-pit copper mine in the world at Chuquicamata (or Chuqui for short). Chile is the largest copper producer in the world. Copper is the cornerstone of Chile´s economy. The mine at Chuqui is huge. It´s 4km long, 2 to 3km wide, and 800m deep. The mine produces 630,000 metric tons of copper a year, most of which is exported to China.
This is a fraction of Chile´s total annual production. On the whole, Chile produces about forty percent of the world´s copper each year.
The tour wasn´t very extensive. We were told to wear closed-toed shoes, long pants, and long sleeves. Thus attired, we boarded the bus and received hard hats. The bus drove us to a viewing area where we got to stare at the giant pit for about forty minutes. Then we drove back to the starting point.
From Chuqui, we bussed another hour and a half to San Pedro de Atacama, along the Bolivian border. The Atacama desert is the driest in the world. It is in the rainshadow of the Andes. San Pedro is an extremely touristy oasis town. It has its roots as a pre-Incan town and it looks very different from other parts of Chile. Adobe houses and dirt streets. But now the center of town has been taken over by tourists (like us) and competition is fierce for tourists´dollars. Walking down restaurant row at mealtime, every restaurant has someone touting their menu and inviting you in. A little too touristy for us.
There are many interesting natural areas around town. However,
many people come here just to do a 3-4 day 4-WD tour to Bolivia and the Salar de Uyuni. Unconvinced by the "safety measures" on the 4-WD trips, we decided to skip the Salar de Uyuni for this trip. Plus, Bolivia has been experiencing some civil unrest in the last couple weeks (again). La Paz is currently almost completely blocked and because of this, we may have to completely skip Bolivia on this trip. But we´ll see.
We opted to take a tour to El Valle de la Luna (the Valley of the Moon). Lots of salt. Cordillerra de sal (Salt Mountain Range), Cañon de sal (Salt Canyon), and more salt. The Valley of the Moon is part of the Salt Mountain Range. We hiked on a sand dune and saw other people sandboarding. Later, we watched the sun set and light up the Andes with pinkish light.
Tonight we´re overnighting to Arica (far northern Chile) near the Peruvian and Bolivian borders.
Cheers,
Ana & Ryan
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