La Serena and Pisco Tasting in the Elqui Valley

La Serena is the main town of the Norte Chico region of Chile and the scenery during our seven hour journey here was a dramatic change from everywhere else we've been so far - arid, desert-like landscapes, with few plants other than cacti of all shapes and sizes. The temperature is noticeably higher during the day, getting up to the high 20s, but drops a lot at night.

The arid Elqui Valley, near to La Serena

We were lucky to hit gold with our choice of hostel here. La Sombre del Viento, a recently opened place, was more like a boutique hotel than a hostel! We had the best shower of the trip and homemade yoghurt, bread and cake for breakfast every day. Our French host, Marie-Laure, was incredibly welcoming and happy to chat to us about her travels across the world over a pisco sour. We told her she could easily charge a lot more - but she doesn't want to attract only the rich customers. Awesome.

The wonderful hostess Marie-Laure, and her world travel map

We spent our first couple of days here checking out the highlights of the city, namely the Japanese garden and the Archaeological Museum where exhibits included one of the original Moai statues from Easter Island. We also decided to visit the nearby Valle del Encanto (enchanted valley), which is famous for its rock art and archaeological importance. Tour agencies in La Serena offer this trip at exorbitant prices, but we opted to go instead under our own steam. After two hours on two different buses we set off walking the final 5km in the baking heat, but luckily were picked up halfway by a friendly Chilean guy who turned out to work there! The rock art was really amazing, with a mix of petroglyphs (carvings), pictographs (paintings), and also lots of hollowed out depressions in the rock, possibly used to mix paint in. There were also two enormous, 3m wide holes, which were labelled as 'Baños del Inca' - baths of the Inca - although we're not sure how accurate this name is. Most of the art came from the early centuries AD, but they have also found evidence of human habitation here up to 5000 years ago.

Jo and a Moai

Pictographs in the Valle del Encanto

After three days around La Serena, we took a bus into the Elqui Valley and stayed one night in the picturesque, if very backpackery, village of Pisco Elqui. Pisco, a spirit distilled from grapes, is Chile's speciality and we've had many a pisco sour here - a delicious cocktail made from pisco, lemon juice, sugar and egg white. Most production of the spirit happens in the Elqui Valley and we enjoyed the long bus ride there with spectacular views of the valley far below, enclosed by steep cliffs and patterned with vineyards. While in Pisco Elqui we obviously had to try some, so did a short tour of the Mistral distillery (one of the premium brands of pisco), including two tastings.

Pisco tasting in Pisco Elqui

We've just survived a gruelling 16 hour bus journey to arrive this morning in the desert town of San Pedro de Atacama, which is literally in the middle of the Atacama Desert! More on that next time.

Valparaíso

Houses showing off their bright colours

We have spent the last few days in Valparaíso,
Chile's second city and, also, its capital of culture. It's not a place with a long list of things to see and do; more somewhere for strolling around and enjoying getting lost. It's situated on the coast, adjacent to Viña del Mar, and its 42 hills are a maze of streets, stairways and passages.

Valparaíso rose to prominence in the mid-1800s, as a convenient stop for ships travelling to the Californian gold rush from Europe. Many of the immigrants built their houses on the slopes out of adobe, then lined the walls with the iron carried in the ships as ballast for their arduous journey around Cape Horn at the south of the continent. To stop the iron rusting, leftover paint from the fishing boats was used to coat the houses, giving the city its characteristic multicoloured patchwork appearance.

Nowadays, the city is a haven for street art. Everywhere you look, you will find walls covered in murals of all shapes, sizes and themes, from the (very) weird to the wonderful. Although street art is technically illegal, many people commission artists to paint their walls to avoid someone scrawling a tag on them.

Street art

To get around the city, several of the hills are served by small ascensors, or funicular railways. Many of these are relics from the 1800s but are maintained as part of the city's UNESCO status. We used one to get to another of Pablo Neruda's houses, La Sebastiana. The day we visited was the national Cultural Heritage day, so it was free to get in but was thronged with people. It had magnificent views over the city and the harbour, but we missed the depth of information that was given by the audioguide at La Chascona, Neruda's house in Santiago.

More (rather phallic) street art

We're continuing next to La Serena - further north and close to the Elqui Valley, where they make the ubiquitous pisco.