Trip to Pisco Elqui - Part 3

Morning brought more beautiful weather and Randy and I walked for about an hour on pretty much every paved road in town after breakfast.  The town was waking up and it is an agreeable place.  We got Warren around noon and then went to the pisco distillery on the main square, Mistral.  This is a large manufacturer.  Unfortunately their English tour was not for nearly three more hours so we had to make do with a small tasting and some purchases.  Pisco, when bought at the distilleries, is very economical though I bought a bottle of the 10 year aged stuff that was more expensive.

View in the morning from our room at El Tesoro de Elqui

Randy in the nice garden under the grape vines

One of the place's cats - there were also several playful kittens around

Grapes on the vine in the garden ready for picking.  We did pick some limes from the tree outside of Warren's room.

A typical street scene in Pisco Elqui on this Saturday morning

The church in the morning

Some flowers along our walk around Pisco Elqui

At the edge of town looking down the valley and out over the pisco grapes (mainly Muscat)

A door in Pisco Elqui

We tasted pisco here - one of Chile's largest producers located right on the central square of Pisco Elqui

The nice tasting room worker pulled our tastes straight from the barrels

We tasted two piscos and a sweet apricot liquor (Randy's favorite)

The garden at Mistral Pisco

Warren was disappointed we could not get a tour but enjoyed the visit here anyway

Horcon, a dusty enclave with a large artist’s complex lay about six miles further on.  We visited there and bought a few items including shampoo from aloe vera and painted rocks (these are nicer than they sound).  We drove back north through the Elqui valley, gassed up, and then, with the help on the phone of the young German woman, Franziska Stork, at our hacienda for the evening, found the dirt/gravel road leading to Hurtado.  This route was direct (41 kilometers south from Vicuna to Hurtado) but the road was dreadful.  It took us just over two hours to make it and it was quite dicey in places.  The road crosses desert and mountains and is very rocky in places and full of switch backs up and down.  Nonetheless, we suffered no mishaps and Randy is an excellent driver.  There is no cell service on the route so our main concern was some sort of break down or car problem.  But our faithful Hyundai took the road like a champ.  We crossed the village of Hurtado and found the Hacienda Los Andes about 15 minutes west of town on a gravel road but a good one (it is amazing how there are so many variations of dirt and gravel roads that we don't even think about in the U.S.).

The large and interesting artists' complex in Horcon - very hippy and new aged tinged

The dreadful road from Vicuna to Hurtado - route 445 - avoid at all costs unless you have a big four wheel drive vehicle.  This sign gave a clue of the challenges ahead on this road.

The deserted desert landscape

One of the big observatories was visible in the distance and we passed another one closer by - this is world class star viewing territory

On the hard road to Hurtado

More of the same

We saw this "beehive" house which we had only seen before in Harran in southern Turkey and are famous in Trulli in Italy. Here it is in the wilds of Chile and is not a tourist attraction.

The companion sign to the earlier one - road challenges ahead but at least we were nearing the hamlet of Hurtado by this point

Yeah!  We almost made it finally to Hurtado where civilization and decent (though still gravel) roads exist

Hacienda Los Andes is rustic with seven rooms.  It has two friendly but slightly scruffy cats that lounge on the terrace.  We booked the suite because it has a king sized bed which is heavenly after the small beds of Chile.  Warren had a large room with three single beds.  Breakfast and dinner are included in the lodging price.  Dinner was served on the pleasant terrace surrounded by a pretty but slightly overgrown garden.  Franziska served us delicious soup, chicken and vegetables and a Chilean version of flan (not delicious in my opinion though Warren liked it).  We drank a Carmenere from the Limari Valley. 

At the garden oasis of Hacienda Lost Andes - glad to survive the rigors of the road from Vicuna

One of the two hacienda felines

The other one - looks like he has seen a bit of life

View across the garden to the mountains

View from our room - the hacienda's only "suite".  We choose it for the king size bed - a true luxury in Chile.

A view of the fountain in the garden

Originally founded as a horse riding center the place still does that but focuses now on astronomy and particularly on astro-photography

Before the served dinner in the garden - very nice zucchini (or was it broccoli?) cream soup, stuffed chicken and vegetables and a type of Chilean flan

The main attraction to me was the chance to star gaze.  This area of Chile is one of the top places in the world for star gazing.  The current owner of the hacienda, a Flemish gentleman, turned the hacienda from its previous focus on horse riding (which is still available) to astronomy and in particular astro-photography.  A nice article about this can be found at http://telescopiosyestrellas.cl/imaging-the-night-sky-a-passion/.   There were two Germans there practicing astro-photography.  The hacienda has several set ups for this photography where the camera and telescope are linked – all very complicated and doubtlessly expensive.  There is also one observatory for non photographers.  This eight inch refractive telescope was impressive.  It found and tracked objects automatically.  Daniel Verschatse, the owner and astronomer, personally guided our night time tour while his assistant Elke helped.  This was a truly amazing experience.  Using lasers Daniel told us about the sky and especially the southern hemisphere stars.  The abundance of stars visible with the naked eye was breathtaking and included the Milky Way and the two Magellan clouds, actually two small galaxies.  Then, we went to the telescope and Daniel treated us to different views of about 10 points of interest including Jupiter where we saw three moons, alpa centauri (the famed nearby double star), a soon to be super nova, and an area where new stars are being formed.  We saw star clusters and three stars in a row of different ages known by their colors, yellow (medium), blue (old) and white (new).  The experience was both educational and magical.  We left with an appreciation of the glories of the southern sky and a kindling interest in astronomy.  This experience was well worth the stay at Hacienda Los Andes.  Highly recommended but don’t go there on the “road” from Vicuna – take the paved route up from Ovalle. 

Our host and astronomer extraordinaire Daniel

A photo of Jupiter taken by Daniel (from his website).  He also treated us to the sight of this gas giant where we spotted three of its moons.

The small Magellan galaxy, which we also saw (photo from Daniel)

The Omega Centauri star - a cluster - which we viewed - photo from Daniel

 The next morning brought a delicious and delightful breakfast of omelets, cheese, ham, breads, jams and coffee in the garden.  We fueled up and then Randy and I walked the "River Trail."  This was about two kilometers and was very nice.  We met a horse who was refreshing himself in the river.  The Hacienda Los Andes has several trails and this is the shortest of the bunch.  Warren piddled (of course!) at the hacienda.  We packed up and headed out west towards Ovalle.  On our way we stopped at the Piscasca National Monument.  This was not too far off of the paved road (yes, we finally got to a paved road!) but is a work in progress.  A large and very nice looking museum has been constructed but is not open.  There is a trail system (not very well marked) around the desert to show where dinosaur bones were found and where ancient (as in 8000 BC) man lived.  The best part was the abundance of petrified wood.  The place has so much of it and in one area, almost a whole tree was assembled ("tronco" or log).  That was breathtaking.  But it was a hot and pretty arduous hike and we were glad to get to the car and head home through Ovalle and then down the coast highway.

Warren enjoyed his bountiful breakfast in the garden

The omelet was particular delicious

Randy outside of our suite

Alice in front of our suite with the glorious view across the valley

Along the aptly named "River Trail"

This fine fellow surprised us by joining us from the river where he had evidently been cooling off

A selfie with the three of us

A new friend

The observatory complex of Hacienda Los Andes - a small hike up from the main hacienda

Final panoramic at Hacienda Los Andes

The sign was more impressive than the sights

The place where ancient (circa 8000 BC) main lived

Randy and Warren admire the stone house.  All of the explanatory signs and materials were in Spanish so we only got a partial comprehension of everything.

The dinosaur replica was kitschy but impressive

Another selfie

Sitting on one of the many pieces of 70 million (yes, million) year old petrified wood

Warren read the map of our hike better than Alice did and we were able to cover the entire circuit (about 3 kilometers)

Detail of the petrified wood

Alice on "tronco" - nearly an entire ancient tree reassembled - truly breathtaking - we were awed

Detail of "tronco"

Warren on "tronco"

At another of the petrified logs

For some reason we could not fathom this leafy green plant was growing in the middle of this very dry desert (well, deserts are supposed to be very dry but this place is experiencing a severe drought)

The namesake of the brewery we visited the day before

Panoramic over the Pichasca site

All in all, our trip to Pisco Elqui was a success.  We saw so much of nature and history, and enjoyed spectacular scenery and some pretty good food and drink.  We discovered two haciendas we would definitely return to and had our first professional astronomy experience which was priceless.  And a little life threatening (as in when we traveled between Vicuna and Hurtado) is always invigorating. Warren was a good traveling companion as long as lots of time for him to get going was allowed.  Our car was a warrior through roads the rental company would shudder at.  It was good to get back home to Vina and the sea view.  We celebrated Warren's last evening with dinner at Chez Gerald, a venerable (1956) restaurant on the sea in Vina.  Warren judged it the best meal of his trip and relished the seafood.  

Warren loved the assortment of cold seafood we got as our starter at Chez Gerald

Alice loved seeing the sights of Chile - especially those off the beaten track - and getting to know this fascinating country a little more