Valle de Elqui

For our last hurrah and to finish Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire before heading home we drove six hours to the Valle de Elqui or more specifically to Pisco Elqui a town renamed at one point to emphasize the region's major industry - Pisco production (I already blogged on Pisco).

We thought we'd leave hosteling behind for our last trip and instead rented a house near the town.

It doesn't quite look like this in late Fall.

View from the bedroom window

It was warm enough to read on the porch

Making breakfast

On our first day here after being woken up by the roosters instead of the bus traffic, Rob, Renee, and Jonathan decided to do yet one more horseback riding trip through the mountains while Elisa and I preserved our backsides for the long flight home the next Monday but Elisa jumped on just to try and get over some fears.

Valle del Elqui

We also visited several Pisco distilleries that reminded me of my undergraduate chemical engineering distillation courses.  In order to make the classes more interesting the problems were usually about making some type of hard alcohol rather than a random chemical product.  We were warned not to try it in the dorms.

The first one was Los Nichos which is the oldest active pisco distillery in Chile and the last craft winery that protects the traditional formula of making pisco and sweet wines.  Rob, Renee, and Jonathan approached it on horseback and we drove there.

Besides Pisco, the region is known for its clear skies and, as a result, observatories.  There are several research observatories in the area.  We could not view the Transit of Venus in South America so we decided to at least have our own once-in-a-lifetime experience by visiting the local tourist observatory, Mamalluca.  We couldn't really take photos but we did a least get one shot of the gang getting use of our Andean hats once more.  The coolest part was seeing Saturn through the telescopes and learning about a really cool astronomy website that lets you see the sky anywhere in the world, at any date and time along with the constellations pointed out - check out stellarium.

We spent a lot of time just hanging out which is what a vacation is about!

OK - she hasn't gotten the reading bug yet.  Soon, hopefully.

The second day we check out an artisan "village" that is probably a lot more interesting in the tourist season.  It is mostly a benefit to be here off-season because there are no crowds anywhere.  We also headed to our second distillery, Destilería Mistral, which is located in the center of the town of Pisco Elqui.  We ended up with a private tour in English because nobody else was around.  The guide was great and tried to gear things to the kids.

Distileria Mistral

While waiting for the tour to start we finally got Elisa on video singing one of her rhyming games in Spanish.  We know her fluency will probably fade no matter what we do so at least we have it documented.

Elisa and Jonathan entertaining the staff (and themselves) with their version of Chilean folk dancing.  Too much pisco???

On Friday, we headed back to Santiago with a stop at the biggest and most modern distillery, Pisco Capel, which is in the town of Vicuna.

We then headed straight back to have energy for our last day at the Estadio and for a marathon packing session this weekend!

Update:  I spoke too soon.  Looks like she may get the reading bug soon enough...