And here we are….at what feels and looks to me as remote, spiritual, dry and inspirational. After a 7 hour night bus drive and another 2 and half hours from La Serena we finally arrived in Elqui. A little valley deep into the interior of Chile. Dry, full of cactus, dusty roads and steep mountains. But there are places with lush vegetation and even grapes as here the famous “pisco” is made.
We are staying in a little house in the centre of town up the hill. The entrance is bright pink and the inside reminds me of the village houses in Spain. Cool and a little dark with small windows looking over the valley and the street. In the morning you can hear the steps of the horses passing by…
The people here are friendly. You can tell they live a very lay back life style and are not too bothered with the few tourists who are around. Miguel and Ruben went off to climb the mountain behind our house at 5 am this morning. Surprisingly they were back by 10am. The heat had made them come back earlier and the walk up had been very challenging. But I loved how Ruben was up for it. The picture shows how high up they were…
Sam and Guido had just woken up so we had breakfast together and made a plan to see the stars tonight. Elqui is very famous for it’s astronomy. And as we missed out on it in Atacama we are meeting a very nice guy tonight who will give us some insights and explain the position of the stars in the southern hemisphere…Can’t wait!
The Five Gypsies 