Exploration – Part II: Elqui Valley

About three weeks after arriving in La Serena, it was time for our first visit to the Elqui Valley. The Elqui Valley starts on the edge of La Serena and heads east toward Argentina. It’s a definite tourist destination in this part of Chile. Elqui valley is the most famous wine-producing area in Northern Chile – noted for its Syrah and Carmenere wines. It’s also known for its pisquerias, where Chile’s famous brandy, pisco, is made. In addition, one of Chile’s most famous poets, Gabriela Mistral, was born in this valley, in the town of Vicuña. Plus it’s part of the route up to where many of the observatories are.

All in all, the Elqui Valley was definitely high up on the list of places to visit.

We’d been warned that traffic can be awful on the narrow roads of the valley. Especially in February (i.e. vacation month). So, we started out early in the day, before most people were moving around. We reached Vicuña for a bathroom break before the craft market had opened, then reached our destination, Pisco Elqui, about the time businesses were opening (10:30 am). We managed to find a parking spot on one of the narrow streets, then headed into the hills for a hike. We figured we’d get our hike in before the hottest part of the day. It got much warmer up the valley than in La Serena, topping out in the high 80’s.

By the end of the day, we had confirmed that going early was an excellent approach. When we returned from our hike, the village was packed and finding a spot for a car would have been extremely difficult. Since we already had a parking spot, we left our car where it was and walked around the village until we were ready to leave. We’ll definitely do the same thing the next time we visit, if we drive.

But I’m getting ahead of myself. Driving up the valley was wonderful. Here we found a lot more green than we’d seen in La Serena. The Elqui River runs through this valley and provides the water for all of the wineries and pisquerias. The mountains were still very brown, but the valley was gorgeous.

After about an hour of driving on Ruta 41, we turned off the main highway and started up a smaller road toward Pisco Elqui. And my “smaller road”, I mean SMALLER ROAD! We wound through small villages clinging to the sides of cliffs on narrow roads that were, at times, one car wide. The road got narrower the further up the valley you went. Later in the day, we eventually reached Horcón (the second to last village on the road), we had to drive for a long way just to find somewhere wide enough to turn around.

Our hike was enjoyable, but difficult to navigate. We followed the route shown on Google Maps (already proven to be inaccurate for Chile…) It took a little searching to find the right trail, but we eventually managed it. Everything seemed to be going great until we ran into a wall of boulders across what we thought was the trail. Forward options seemed to include bouldering up the wall or taking a very precarious route up the side of the cliff. Neither seemed particularly… wise.

We had decided to bail and were simply looking for an overview of the village, when we noticed a horseback tour coming up the valley. By watching where they went, we found out what we had done wrong. After they passed, we made the same left hand turn that they’d made to stay on the correct trail. Yeah!

After we looped around and returned to Pisco Elqui, we explored the village. We had a wonderful lunch on a shaded outdoor patio at a restaurant called La Fagota. Then ice cream and back to our car for a quick trip to Horcón, then back to La Serena.

On our way into the village earlier in the day, I’d been very worried about the return trip through town when we’d have to compete with opposing traffic on a particularly narrow street. However, I should have given the locals more credit. By the time we were leaving, they had rerouted the incoming traffic around the town so that the outgoing traffic could use that particular street. Obviously, they been dealing with the issue for decades and already had it all figured out!

Our way back to La Serena had more traffic, but was otherwise pretty smooth. For this first trip up the valley, we skipped the tours of the wineries and pisquerias. Chile has a zero tolerance law on drinking and driving. Since we really don’t want to get in trouble with the law and get sent back to the US, we decided to play it safe. Maybe next time we’ll either stay overnight in the Valley or take the bus from La Serena.