Today we have a private tour booked with some Cruise Critic folks (whom we met in person yesterday when we went to the sail away room party to pay our tour fees – side note – the folks holding the sail away party are from Tromso, Norway, where we will be visiting on our cruise in June. Talk about small world.) So we get ready early, have breakfast in La Cocina and meet our group at the appointed time.
It’s a nice group of 8 – Rosie (the organizer) and her husband Ozzie (Utah), Bill and Sandy (Costa Rica), Diana (can’t remember where – but without her husband who fell on the last cruise and is taking it easy) and Diane (substitute for Diana’s husband). Our driver, Jaime, is waiting for us right outside the port, and we walk to the van and pile in.
Our first stop isn’t open yet (don’t really know what it was, but maybe we’ll hit it on the way back. We turn around and head out through Coquimbo along the seaside road, which is where most of the damage form the Tsunami & earthquake in September occurred. You can see the seawall totally torn up in places and the lingering debris and remnants of houses and retail establishments across the street. They are just starting to rebuild and putting plans together for more restoration.
We drive through La Serena which is the “richer” town of the two. Here, Jaime explains that the streets are all laid out in a chessboard configuration. there are no round streets and lots of architectural laws and rules to keep the buildings uniform and in Colonial style.
Through La Serena we go, looking at statues and parks, and out into the mountains to begin our drive to the Elqui Valley – our ultimate destination. The scenery is beautiful here, rocky mountains, green valleys and sparkling sunshine.
Our first stop is the Puclaro Dam which is used for water and hydroelectric power. It’s a lovely walk up to the dam, sunny, but with a cool breeze. Plus beautiful scenery overlooking the lake and the mountains.
On the way back down to the van, Jaime offers us a capoa, which is a cactus like thing that you eat by scooping out the pulp. It tastes like a kiwi and something else I can’t identify. Very nice with a scoop of sugar on top.
Back on the road, we pass the lake and dam on the other side – with more breathtaking views….
….and past increasingly large vineyards – some red vines! – all producing the grapes to make Pisco, the hugely popular alcohol here and in Peru. Jaime tells us about the war between Chile and Peru over who really invented Pisco – and he says the war is over because a few weeks ago they found old documents in the Elqui valley that proved Pisco started in Chile. Ok – if you say so!
Appropriately enough, our next stop is Capel – the Pisco Cooperative here in the valley. This is one of the largest (if not the largest) distilleries of Pisco in the country. We get a guided tour of the facilities which processes grapes for 30,000 (I think) different vineyards. It’s wildly different from La Recova – obviously – but still so very interesting. We see the area (huge troughs really) where they first separate the grapes and stems, then walk past the massive vats of the distillery and the oak barrels (from California and France) that are used to age some of the Pisco.
Our final stop is the tasting room where – oh help us – we try Pina Colada Pisco and Mango Pisco. Oh, this is too good – and too deadly. We are very happy that we can’t bring this stuff back – we’ve already got one bottle of wine we are packing – no way we are packing more liquid. Which is a good thing actually! But Rosie and Ozzie decide to buy a couple bottles, and one, a Toffee Cream they get for all of us to share in the van.
As we make our way further into the Elqui Valley, we all toast with the Toffee Cream Pisco, which is like liquid candy. Reaffirmation that we don’t need to be taking any of this stuff home with us! LOL.
The Elqui valley has a reputation as a hippie town. It is reputed to have a magnetic center, so it draws all sorts of creative and artistic types to be near the force. There have also been many UFO sightings here, the most famous of which is the UFO crash in 1998. We don’t see anything in the sky on our trip, but we do get to “use” the sky, so to speak, to make our lunch.
We are having lunch at a Solar kitchen, where they cook and bake everything in solar ovens! Too cool. We walk through the “kitchen” on the way inside – and get to see first hand the bread baking, the meat simmering in pots – amazing.
The setting is just as amazing as the cooking methods. A covered patio overlooking vineyards and mountains rising up over the valley. Lovely.
The food doesn’t disappoint either. We all have the solar baked bread, and then start with an excellent salad of local tomatoes, beets and lettuce. Extremely good. .
For our main course, we have options of goat, chicken or vegetarian. Ed and I of course opt for the goat - with mashed potatoes - both of which are out of this world.
Then dessert – which who needs at this point – is a custard with papaya syrup on top. Too much, but too good to pass up! Now, that papaya syrup – I’d like that to take home!
The only disappointment is that they don’t have the Fog Catcher beer Jaime has been telling us about. The brewer literally takes nets to ‘catch’ the fog and gather the water out of the fog to use to brew the beer. Now, that is something we want to try. But sadly, not here.
Fully sated – and fully stuffed – we make our way back to the van, passing the “kitchen’'” again, and all the ovens have been moved to follow the sun. What a great experience.
We head back toward the ship, stopping this time in La Serena to go to a market for trinkets, which is nice, but nothing special (and no Fog-catcher beer either, darn it). Then we walk a bit around the market learning about the architecture and taking pictures of the oldest church in the town – which has survived all the earthquakes with only minor damage.
As we turn toward Coquimbo, we drive through the little streets of La Serena with all its green spaces and great old buildings built according to the “La Serena” way.
So back to the tender we go, bidding Jaime a fond farewell, and boarding our little tender – which turns out to be a private tender for just the 8 of us and one other couple. Now, that’s a private tour for you! We’ve never had that happen – tenders are always packed full unless you’re on the very last one with the security guys. And sometimes even then….
…so back aboard for a relaxing evening and our first sea day tomorrow.
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