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  • South America
    Dag 108

    Going to the Moon

    15. mai, Chile ⋅ ☁️ 19 °C

    We started the day excited to visit the Valley of the Moon, a quick 30 minute drive from San Pedro. After the rangers at the entrance explained the walking spots to us, we set off, driving up a sandy road surrounded by red cliffs, covered in white salt crystals.
    The first walk was near the Duna Grande (big dune) and took us about an hour. It ran on top of a rocky ridge, with cliffs on either side, similar to the valley of Mars, but with white salt desposits crystallised on the rock. The big dune sealed off the valley, and it was indeed huge. I tried to include Nick in some of the photos to give a sense of perspective - as the landscapes were not only breathtaking, but also really vast.
    With only a lonely bush clinging to life at the bottom of the dune, this desolate lanscape is so harsh that NASA tested a mars rover here, to see if the vehicle could traverse the rocks and sand that indeed felt like they belonged on a different planet.
    We drove deeper into the Valle de la Luna, keeping the giant dune on our left and arrived at our second stop, the amphitheatre. Unlike the one we visited in Cochamó, this amphitheatre was made of layered red rocks, and the path took us along it's edge.
    As we drove beyond the amphitheatre, the salt desposits started becoming much more visible as we entered an old salt extraction site. Littered with old, rusty machinery and covered in sharp salt crystals, we wandered around inspecting the various rocks. We finished the tour at the Three Marys, three towering rock formations that had survived erosion.
    We really enjoyed all the stops, they all felt very alien and unlike anything we'd seen before. It was pleasantly hot, around 25 degrees and sunny. Luckily for us, most tours go in the afternoon so we barely saw anyone.
    After a quick and delicious lunch in town at a place called Franchuteria which made great baguettes (where we ended up going pretty much every day!), we headed out again for more adventures. We drove to Laguna Baltinache, a collection of 8 small salt ponds in the middle of a gigantic plain called the Plain of Patience.
    In order to reach Baltinache we had to drive along a very long dirt road. We've had our fair share of bad roads on this trip, but this one ended up being the hardest so far. It didn't have particularly big pot holes but, on top of being over 30km long, it had constant ripples, big enough to shake our SUV.
    We quickly realised we were either going to have to drive really slow, or really fast. Inspired by the local minibuses, we opted for driving at 90 kmph! In order to avoid drifting through some of the deeper gravel, I had to hold onto the steering wheel so hard that it was dripping in sweat once we arrived. Even though it sounds a bit crazy, the road was straight and very wide and essentially empty. Also, thankfully driving at that speed reduced the shaking a lot, making the journey much more bearable.
    Once we arrived (alive!) to the lagunas, we took a walk around some of the smaller ones, enjoying the crazy scenery. Some lagunas had very intense blue colours, and the salt around them created the most fascinating patterns and crystals.
    You could even go for a dip in the biggest one! It's so salty that you float, similar to the dead sea. The swim was much colder than expected (as Nick's expression shows!) but, once acclimatised, we really enjoyed floating under the sun. We dried off, brushing the salt of our skin, and headed back to San Pedro along the awful road.
    After a very packed day, we finished on a high note, watching the sunset in the Valle de la Luna. The entry ticket we had from the morning allowed us to go back at 5:30pm and enjoy another amazing sunset with a beautiful yellow to red colour transition. There was even some lightning striking the mountains on horizon from some very ominous looking clouds. What an incredible place!    Les mer

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  • South America
    Dag 107

    Going to Mars

    14. mai, Chile ⋅ ☀️ 20 °C

    The night bus was the best one we've taken yet, so we woke up relatively refreshed in Calama. Just as well, as we had a busy day ahead!
    Calama is a fairly big city, close to a gigantic mine which extracts lithium and other metals. We'd been warned the city is unsafe, so we rented a car, did a quick food shop and set off to San Pedro de Atacama.
    San Pedro is one of the most famous destinations in Chile, with a population of just 11,000, but a quarter of a million tourists annually!
    It's situated at 2,400 meters, so San Pedro is our first stop in acclimatising, as once we get to Bolivia, where we'll often be above 3,500m.
    The drive from Calama was through a completely barren desert, flat and vast, and we already felt like we were on another planet.
    Once closer to San Pedro, the landscape started transforming, with huge volcanos on the horizon, all above 5,000m, and smaller but sharper ridges nearby. The colours and shapes are hard to describe, from red, to green and white.
    We checked into our hostel and then headed out immediately, excited to explore the landscape around us. We tried to go to Valle de la Luna (Valley of the Moon), but took a wrong turn finding ourselves on a dirt road, blocked off by massive boulders.
    After finally finding the right way in, we were told to come back tomorrow! It was already 4pm, and we were told we would need much longer to visit it properly. We scouted online for alternatives and found a place called Valle de Marte or Valle de la Muerte (Death valley or Mars Valley). Once we arrived, we realised both names are pretty apt!
    We really loved it, the landscape completely blew us away. The road meandered between giant red rocks, ending at a giant sand dune. There was a group of sandboarders struggling to get downhill, but otherwise the place was completely deserted.
    We walked up the dune and admired the red rocks from above. They looked like giant waves, rippling towards the flat desert plain where San Pedro lies. A strong wind blew down the valley, blowing sand in our faces as we hiked up to the highest viewpoint. The wind calmed down and we got to admire the most incredible sunset we had ever seen.
    The clouds turned yellow then red, with all the rocks around us shining in the crimson light. Some of the sunlight was blocked by the clouds, forming a very long, thin shaft of light, cutting through the horizon and illuminating the volcanoes and the desert plain. It looked incredible and we just stared in silence, feeling like we had truly arrived in another world.    Les mer

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  • South America
    Dag 106

    Parque Nacional Llanos de Challe

    13. mai, Chile ⋅ ☀️ 14 °C

    On our last day around La Serena, we went to see Llanos de Challe National Park, in the southern area of the Atacama desert.
    The drive along the coast to the park was very enjoyable, we had the roaring ocean by our side for the whole way, and even passed some ghost towns.
    The park was, well, deserted! We were the only people there, even the rangers' office was closed.
    The landscape is extremely arid. Even the cacti and shrubs look shrivelled up, with only the odd green tip or flower poking out, reminding us that there is, in fact, life in the desert. But, much to our surprise, we didn't just see life in the odd shrub, we actually saw animals!
    First, as we rounded a corner, we started hearing a very odd sounding alarm call. We initially thought we must have disturbed some birds, but then Nick spotted two guanacos, almost perfectly camouflaged in the vegetation. We'd seen guanacos in Patagonia, but didn't realise they were also all the way up in Atacama desert! They kept on calling to each other until we were safely out of sight.
    However, our second animal encounter was one of best we've ever had. As we were about to finish the trail, Nick turned around and gasped, grabbing my arm. I turned around to see what had startled him - a little fox who was chasing us!
    She seemed very interested in us and, although she demanded a minumum distance of a couple meters, she kept following us very closely for almost half an hour. She would run after us, cross the path in front of us, sniff and dig the sand, being very active and playful. I think she was probably just curious to know how we'd ended up in the desert.
    Once we had finished the hike we wandered down to the sandy beach, with rocky little islands just of the coast. There was a beautiful camping area, with platforms for tents, parasols and everything set up for what looked like an amazing camping spot! It was all empty, as it's not in high season, but we could easily imagine spending a few days of bliss there.
    After the park, we drove along the sunny coast back to La Serena. We dropped of the car and caught a 14 hour night bus to Calama, a dusty mining town, but a necessary evil as it's the gateway to the northern Atacama desert, our next stop.    Les mer

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  • South America
    Dag 105

    European Southern Observatory - ESO

    12. mai, Chile ⋅ ☀️ 13 °C

    On Sunday we'd booked to visit La Silla Observatory, an impressive location with 16 telescopes part of ESO (European Southern Observatory), who set up an observatory here to benefit from some of the clearest night skies in the world.
    Despite an early start, we really enjoyed the drive up from La Serena. The road was empty, and the views were stunning as we drove up towards the desert. We were surrounded by mountains of all colours, similar to the section of the Andes we'd seen near Aconcagua mountain in Argentina.
    We ended up arriving early, but we didn't mind, as we spent the time being entertained by a very boisterous flock of parrots.
    Eventually we got picked up by the observatory's bus, which took us the last 30 minutes up to 2,400m, to the peak of the mountain (La Silla, or "the chair", as it looks a bit like a saddle), which is where all the telescopes are.
    The largest telescope was the first stop of the tour, and it was very impressive!
    The main mission of the 3.6m telescope here has been finding exoplanets, celestial bodies like our Earth, orbiting around stars like the sun.
    It has discovered thousands over the years, by measuring the gravitational pull that the planets have on the stars. Although we typically think about the gravitational pull our sun has on the Earth, Earth also pulls the sun, although only ever so slightly. As exoplanets rotate around their own stars, they also pull on them, making the star wobble with a rythm related to the planets orbit. The large telescope at La Silla detects this wobbling which is in the range of meters, (which is very impressive if you think about how distant and big these stars are, compared to their wobbling!).
    The telescopes have a series of mirrors that allow them to capture light from the universe, they're so sensitive that cars are asked to not use their full beams, even in the car park at the bottom of the valley!
    The two largest telescopes, both 3.6m wide, are avaliable for all members of the ESO, provided their research is for compelling enough science. The astronomer needs to convince the ESO board that their investigation is worth doing, competing with scientists from all over Europe to get the best nights sky.
    Back in the day, astronomers would've had to travel all the way to La Silla, prepare little cards with coordinates on them, and give them to the operators to prepare the telescope for the night. Nowadays its all done online and astronomers only travel to La Silla if they're curious to see the telescopes in person.
    The second telescope we saw was the 'NTT' (there were a lot of acronyms that day!).
    NTT's (new technology telescope) refers to the telescopes mechanism, and how it points to the stars. With the NTT, the rotation of the telescope and its dome is achieved by a single mechanism, which rotates the entire building. We were told it was simpler, but it still looked incredibly complicated!
    We also learnt about the ELT - extremely large telescope, being built further north in the desert. Ready in 2030, it will be 10x bigger than the biggest one at La Silla, nearly 40 meters across!
    Needless to say, if you hadn't already gathered by the level of detail of this blog post, we loved the tour!
    Afterwards, we kept on driving north to Huasco, which is in the middle of absolutely nowhere! We thought that Huasco would have probably looked much worse (as it was a bit grim) if it wasn't for the phenomenal sunset we witnessed as we pulled into our Airbnb's car park for the night.    Les mer

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  • South America
    Dag 104

    Birthday raincheck

    11. mai, Chile ⋅ ☀️ 16 °C

    When planning our route around La Serena, we were constrained by the fact that some of the observatories were only open to tourists on the weekend. In order to visit one of the biggest observatories, we were going to travel north on Saturday 11th, which is baba's birthday.
    This wasn't ideal as, rather that planning something special, we would have a day of travelling instead. I'd checked with baba and we agreed to stick with the best route, but, in retrospect, I wish we'd made more of an effort to plan something special for him!
    We still had a couple of wine and pisco tours planned, so it was still meant to be a nice day.
    However, in the morning we reached out to our Airbnb host for the night, but got no response. We checked his profile and realised the whole property looked suspicious, it was a new listing with no reviews, and had very little information - not even an address! Long story short, I spent about an hour with Airbnb support, eventually getting a refund. Obviously we also had to book some other last minute accommodation which also turned out to be a bit of a headache.
    To make things worse, while dealing with it we lost track of time and ended up missing the pisco tour we had been waiting an hour for.
    Needless to say, not a great start for baba's birthday! The whole charade really dampened the mood (mainly mine).
    Thankfully, we still managed to visit an organic winery called Cavas del Valle, with a free tasting of five delicious wines. We also happened to pass by Capel, the Cooperativa Agrícola Pisquera Elqui Limitada, one of the largest producers of pisco in the country. We had seen their products in pretty much every supermarket, and first tried their pisco sour in Cochamó. Despite being a huge operation, especially compared to the family run outfits we'd visited in Elqui, the tour was very good, and we got to appreciate the scale of production of over 1,000 farmers coming together to form a cooperative.
    We eventually made it back to La Serena, where we stayed in a nice flat (which worked out), and had a yummy take-away pizza. We finished watching Griselda on Netlix (we really enjoyed it, it's a crazy story. Look up Griselda Blanco if you've never heard of her!).
    Since my birthday is coming up soon, we decided we'll take that opportunity to do a joint celebration, to make up for the mild shambles of baba's birthday (we also recognise it was still a very nice day, and we are very spoilt by how nice every day is!).    Les mer

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  • South America
    Dag 103

    Pisco valley

    10. mai, Chile ⋅ ☁️ 13 °C

    We woke up at our lovely place in Valle del Elqui, starting the day with Nick's classic museli breakfast and some time relaxing by the pool.
    The host was lovely, giving us lots of tips on what to do, and even let us borrow a couple of bikes.
    We took her advice and cycled up the valley to do some Pisco tasting, our first stop being the family run distillery of Los Nichos. For £2.50, we got a tour of the distillery and tasted two of their piscos, as well as a sweet dessert wine.
    Pisco has been produced in South America since the 1500s, first introduced by the Spanish. Chilean Pisco is now a controlled denomination, meaning it can only be produced in 5 valleys (Elqui being one of them), from specific types of grape.
    The Spanish didn't really know how to make good wine in the harsher South American climate. So, rather than make bad wine, people decided to distill it instead, making Pisco.
    Sweet grapes are typically harvested between February and April, then macerated and fermented for two weeks. The resulting 'drop wine' is then distilled.
    To distill it its firstly heated (at Los Nichos they use steam) to make the alcohol evaporate. The steam is then condensed through wriggling pipes using cool water.
    The resulting liquid is separated depending on its alcohol percentage. The first fraction to come off is called the cabeza (head, containing >70% alcohol), corazon (heart, between 40-70%), and cola (the butt) - the rest.
    Cabeza and cola are sold on for other purposes, while the corazon is used to make the Pisco.
    To fine tune its alcohol content (as 40-70% is a pretty wide range!) they mix in demineralised water and voilà, clear pisco is ready.
    At Los Nichos, they also age it for either one or three years inside wooden barrels. The one year old pisco is aged using 'inactive' wood, which allows the pisco to breathe, without altering its colour or taste. While the three year pisco is aged using french oak, which makes the pisco darker, gives it a softer taste, and adds wooden tones (along with cinammon, smoke and all the other crazy flavours they mention at tastings!).
    The family run the whole 'artisanal' process on their land, using a handful of containers and a couple of distillery tanks. They only produce a few thousands bottles and sell mainly locally.
    They also told us a bit about their history. Los Nichos (the alcoves), refers to the underground 'crypt' complete with little burial alcoves beneath the distillery that the family has.
    In the past the local elite would frequent the distillery to get drunk on pisco, but wanted to keep their reputation intact. So they came up with the idea of saying that people were just visiting the crypt to pay respect to their relatives, a useful lie as it also deterred thieves from trying to steal the pisco!
    The crypt still exists, with alcohol stashed with vintage bottles and epitaphs to the people who used to drink there, mimicking those found on tombs - though with references to the vices of those frequenting such a fine establishment!
    We really enjoyed the tour, so much so that we decided to cycle 10 minutes down the road and do another one at Doña Josefa's distillery! Another family run business, doing pretty much the same thing as Los Nichos (minus the crypt!). They offered a tasting of five piscos - for free, as the owner believes everyone should try a good pisco at least once, no matter how rich or poor they may be!
    We'd initially had planned to finish the day with a stargazing tour but, on top of the fact that we'd had too much Pisco, we were told it was too cloudy to see anything, so we had dinner at ours and had an early night to sleep it off!    Les mer

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  • South America
    Dag 102

    The cloud forest

    9. mai, Chile ⋅ ☀️ 14 °C

    La Serena city was only a pit stop to visit the surrounding area, so we rented a car and hit the road, heading first for Fray Jorge National Park, about an hours drive south.
    At the entrance to the park, after a few warnings from the rangers about the condition of the road, we drove uphill to one of the cloud forests. The drive was along a very steep, sandy dirt road, littered with big rocks, but we managed to arrive, despite not having a 4x4.
    I wish I'd recorded the state of the road, as I couldn't quite believe we'd made it without getting a flat tyre (Nick was unconcerned).
    The walking routes on the other hand, were extremely well maintained, they even had access for people with disabilities. This was the first time we'd seen this in a National Park - and a great idea, assuming the person with the disability could get past the dirt road!
    Fray Jorge National Park is next to the Pacific coast, and has a very particular landscape, surrounded by desert valleys and filled with cacti. Despite a measly 147mm of rain annually, some cacti were massive, much taller than us, and some even had beautiful red flowers budding from the top.
    The vegetation then changes drastically when climbing the hills towards the ocean. The cold air from the ocean is pushed up into a warmer air, allowing the hills to create an almost permanent cloud.
    This allows the existence of a cloud forest, surrounded by a huge desert. The ocean mist allows the plants growing on the peaks to collect an extra 1,000mm of water, helped along by the moss and lichen.
    The forest is similar to those found much further south - the Valdivian rainforest. It's thought to be a vestigial fragment of that Rainforest, which would have covered this whole area thousands of years ago. However, the rest was lost as when the Andean mountain range formed, (its a very young mountain range) causing 'aridisation' of the area. About 14 of these fragements remain, surviving due to the clouds.
    The plants were amazing, many still in flower and constantly immersed in clouds. We also saw hummingbirds, owls and another types of bird. A very unique forest!
    Afterwards we drove back to La Serena, and then onwards towards the Elqui Valley, where we would stay the night. Our accommodation was at 1,400m, perched right up against the sandy desert mountains.
    The mountains surrounding the Elqui valley look like giant piles of coarse sand, seemingly ready to cause a landslide any minute. Occasionally there are colourful rocks sticking out, green, red and sometimes purple. There's little vegetation, except for the ubiquitous scattered shurbs.
    However, the bottom of the valley looks completely different, as it's full of vineyards and trees.
    With water flow controlled by a large dam at the entrance of the valley, the vineyards here produce tonnes of grapes, as well as some of the best Pisco (a type of Brandy) in the world.    Les mer

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  • South America
    Dag 101

    Going north

    8. mai, Chile ⋅ ☁️ 15 °C

    The morning in Santiago was sunny, and for once there was no smog, as it had rained the night before. All the mountains around the city were covered in fresh snow, and with the air so clear it looked really pretty.
    We booked a dentists appointment (again!) as my retainer had come loose, and Nick thought he might need a filling. We went back to the same dentist where I had my chipped tooth fixed. The dentist was super nice and told me he sees me more than his regular patients!
    We got everything sorted quickly, and luckily, Nick's tooth was totally fine.
    We then hopped on a 6 hour bus north to go to La Serena, a city in the north. The bus journey was mostly alongside the coast, and the sunset painted the sky with amazing colours. We enjoyed the views, as the landscape became drier and drier, with lots of cacti popping up. We also caught up on our neglected penguin blog - so many pictures so sieve through!
    We finished our day with one of the worst meals of the holiday, handpicked by Nick and he will be blamed for it in perpetuity.    Les mer

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  • South America
    Dag 100

    Back to the continent

    7. mai, Chile ⋅ ☁️ 5 °C

    After six days, we felt like we had really explored Rapa Nui (it's tiny!) and, with the weather turning to torrential rain (now pouring for hours), it was time to head back to Santiago.
    Before leaving we went to an artisanal market and perused the moai, finally deciding to buy a little one for our flat in London. Now we just need to make sure it doesn't break for the next 3 months!
    The flight back was quicker, just over 4 hours, and we lost 2 hours due to the time zone change. As we landed, the pilot said it was 4 degrees outside, we both looked at one another thinking they must have got it wrong, but it turned out they hadn't! We had left Santiago in what felt like a late summer weather, and found it after one week in freezing winter!    Les mer

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  • South America
    Dag 99

    One final dive

    6. mai, Chile ⋅ 🌬 21 °C

    On Moday we finally managed to visit the Rapa Nui museum. We'd tried to go a couple of times but we had always either run late, or found the museum closed.
    We were glad we managed to go, as the museum was really interesting, covering a lot of what Toŋa had already told us, but also adding some new things.
    One of these was about the volcanic origins of the island. The island consists of three main volcanos, erupting at different times over it's history. The first volcano erupted about 3 million years ago, forming the top corner of the island, beyond Anakena beach. The second volcano was at Ranu Kau, where the giant crater with the lake inside is now, which emerged from the sea about 1 million years ago. And finally, Terevaka (the hill where we went horseriding) connecting the other two volcanos 300,000 years ago.
    The island is therefore very new, in geological terms, which explains the very coarse rock and the relatively scarce amount of fauna on it (some of which was introduced by humans).
    After visiting the museum, we grabbed lunch and then went for our final dive, at a spot called Manavai. The dive spot has a circular hole in the coral reef, resembling a Manavai (the protective holes where plants were grown by Rapa Nui people).
    The dive was great, and we saw lots of morays, trumpet fish, puffer fish and many other unidentified fishes. We enjoyed it and hoped it wouldn't be our last dive on this trip!    Les mer

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