In the land of the pisco sour <<<<

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In the narrow country, there are only two directions to choose from - north or south. With snow still in and out of the Lake District, heading north seemed like a reasonable choice, so we headed to La Serena, 7 hours north of Valparaiso. At least a 7-hour bus ride allows you to see amazing nature, unlike flying, so the trip went pretty quickly. Fortunately the Chilean buses are closer to Argentinian standards than those in Bolivia or Peru!La Serena is a large seaside resort in the summer, but was quite quiet in the off-season. Arriving early in the evening, food was again on the priority list, and after checking out the pizzeria we recommended, red wine was on my mind. Unfortunately, the waiter decided to leave out the fact that they were out of red wine until long after we ordered, by which time it was too late to leave. An Italian restaurant that lacks red wine in the vineyard - definitely a mistake! In most other places, the waiter ran down to the corner store, but customer service is sadly lacking in some parts of Chile, so instead we got an innocent shrug, appetizers brought to the main course, a sandwich instead of the pizza we ordered. - and beautiful. a reminder from him at the end that the service fee is not included in the total price. We got so close to a note that it wasn't part of the meal either, so we held back. Besides that, the city itself surprised us with its squares, neat markets, shops and bars. Unfortunately the weather was quite gray when we walked to the beach and lighthouse, but I'm sure it will be lovely in the summer.The main reason we stayed in La Serena was to break up our trip on the way to Pisco. . Elqui, which we recommended for quiet days in the mountains. We rented a lovely cottage from there for two nights, which quickly turned into three and relaxed in the relaxed atmosphere of the village. The sun shines 320 days a year, but the first day was not one of them. After that, however, it became clear that until the third day I could hardly lie in a hammock because of the heat.We planned to go horseback riding or maybe mountain biking, but for some reason we didn't succeed. , we preferred to babysit. . it's a purely relaxing break on our trip - and probably the last chance we'll have to do it before we get to Buenos Aires.One day we motivated ourselves enough to hike up the hills of the Elqui Valley to the Pisco Nicho. Distillery , but decided to skip the guided tour and tasting after consuming a few too many the night before the pisco sour. A lucky choice of restaurants gave us the perfect feast - hosted by an Argentinian who prided herself on serving, so Luke got the Chorizo ​​Loma he'd been craving since we left BA in June.Never got around to it either. the observatories to see very large telescopes (that's what they actually call them) because certain places are only open to visitors on Saturdays and the sky is not clear enough to figure out which buses we will take to the Mamalluca Observatory at night. had free access. They may have installed an extremely large telescope when we visit..

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