DAY 126
The bus ride to la Serena was once again very nice. You've got to love Chilean buses! The country side is empty but for beautiful and very green mountains. Chile is a very long country and most of the population is in and around Santiago.
DAY 127-128
La Serena is a small town with not much to see outside of its 5 churches. The plan was to go see the Penguins but when we call to make sure we can go to the island, we're told the sea is too rough. Also when it rains here, and it was not torrential rain but a regular rain, everything is closed, schools included! So we spend 2 days relaxing in the la Serena. The city has a very nice Japanese garden. We just have to time it properly in order to visit it between showers ;)
DAY 129
Since the penguins didn't want to see us, we were left with visiting the valley of Elqui. It's supposed to be very scenic, not to mention that it's where the Chilean Pisco is produced. So the plan for the day is to explore the valley by car and have an astronomy tour at night. We booked it yesterday at one of the many observatories of valley. Out of curiosity, we stop at the village of El Molle on the way to see what a small village is like... The answer: nothing ;) shortly after, we come across a dam, named Puclaro, that seems to be a touristic attraction. Skeptical, we stop nevertheless. On one side, there's a decent view of the valley, on the other, where we expect to see an artificial lake there's... Not much! We can clearly see that the water level is 25-30m lower than it should be. Later researches told us they've been having a severe drought for the last 7 years! It's not unusual in the region though and seems to be cyclical.
Next we stop in Vicuña (same name as the animal). The little town has nothing special but we need to confirm our booking for tonight's observatory session. Due to yesterday's bad weather the road is bad and they can only bring 6 persons... Instead of the 10. So they just leave the 4 others aside, without warning and of course without trying to find a solution. Our stay in La Serena is turning into an epic fail and there's not much we can do about it, it seems. We still have the visit of the "pisceria" (Pisco factory) to look forward to. The valley is nice but not exceptional; the Andes are getting closer and closer as we pass by the countless grape fields.
In the factory, we're told about the process, shown the modern and ancient equipment and told ghost stories ;) Some weird stuff happened here if these stories can be believed with apparitions and people showing up on pictures; material for campfire stories (I'm looking at you Rob!). The visit ends by a tasting of course. Pure Pisco is too strong but the sweet wine is really good and we leave with a bottle ;)