After saying goodbye to Chris and Julie in the Santiago airport, we continued north with Alex’s parents to the Elqui [elki] Valley which enjoys over 320 days of sunshine a year, making it a hotspot (haha) for star gazing as the night sky is reliably clear and dark.
After an almost 2 hour drive east from La Serena through the dry desert landscape, we arrived at Pisco Elqui, a small town perched on a mountainside in the narrow valley. Although the surrounding mountains are almost completely barren, the valley river supports vineyards and orchards, giving the area a desert oasis feel. We spent our first 2 nights at hotel Domos Elqui, a hotel of geodesic dome tents. It was pretty amazing to fall asleep directly under the night sky (the bed was just below a viewing hatch in the dome).
Pisco, a spirit made from distilled wine, is the drink of choice in much of Chile but is particularly popular in the Elqui area; understandable as this is one of the country’s two official D.O. (Denomination of Origin) for Chilean Pisco. As a side note, the name “Pisco” is subject to rival claims by Peru (the other big producer) and Chile, and the battle rages to this day. We went to 3 different pisco distilleries over the course of 4 days and discovered that while we may not be huge fans of the straight spirit, we enjoy it mixed (the main drink being a Pisco Sour). Finally, not to be distracted from our dedicated beer tourism, we also found a local brewery in the tiny town of Diaguitas. Their most unique beer was a blend of stout and a cider made from chañar (a berry native to South America). They also make a pretty mean burger if you ever find yourself in the area.
In the town of Vicuña, we visited a solar observatory – we’re told that their special telescope is the only one of its kind in South America, and 1 of 7 in the entire world. Here we got to stare at the sun as long as we wanted (against all childhood advice). We saw eruptions, filaments and sun spots, although surprisingly (to us at least) we didn’t witness the constant activity that we expected. Instead we saw what appeared to be a still image of the sun. It makes perfect sense once explained and has to do with the immense distance and size, causing the movement of solar features to appear in slow motion though the telescope.
We were also lucky enough to visit 2 different observatories at night (thanks to Alex’s mom for researching and arranging all of these great activities) where we saw colliding galaxies, nebulas, star clusters, and Jupiter along with its 4 largest moons (out of 67). We also found out that it’s relatively hard to photograph the night sky (at least without a tripod), hence the lack of stunning star pictures here. But the view of the Milky Way’s spiral arm cast across the center of the pitch black sky was an amazing site. You’ll just have to take our word for it.
