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Four Days in La Serena and the Elqui Valley
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About 300 miles northwest of Santiago, the capital of Chile, on the southern edge of the Atacama, lies the beach town of La Serena, Chile’s second-oldest city. After the discovery of silver nearby in the 19th century the wealthy residents of the growing town built fine churches and mansions. It was given a colonial-style facelift in the 1940s, and with a long sandy beach stretching along the Pacific coast, it’s now a popular resort town. La Serena is also a thriving university town, and the nearby fertile oasis of the Elqui Valley is renowned for its natural beauty and the unrivalled pisco produced in the region.
The journey up the Elqui Valley starts almost immediately behind La Serena and leads all the way east to the Andes Mountains. The valley floor is lush green with crops that get irrigation from the natural Elqui River, which is maintained by the Puclaro Reservoir, built at the end of the 1990s. The town of Vicuña is home to picturesque adobe houses as well the birthplace of 1945 Nobel Prize-winning poet, Gabriel Mistral, a cultural icon in Chile.
Due to its altitude, this part of Chile receives plenty of sunshine with very few cloudy days, so the valley has become a center for the production of grapes to make the famous pisco liquor. And with almost no humidity in its air, the Elqui Valley sits under one of the world’s clearest skies, making it a stargazing paradise charged with energy.
Many people go to Elqui seeking to align their chakras and connect with forces of the universe. An ancient Andean legend tells how a group of Tibetan monks built a monastery that was guarded by an invisible force somewhere between the coastal hills and the high peaks of the Andes. Scientific studies show the Elqui Valley is located exactly at the opposite pole of Lhasa, Tibet. The unique and distinctive characteristics of the region have made it a magnet for yoga centers and meditation.
The journey up the Elqui Valley starts almost immediately behind La Serena and leads all the way east to the Andes Mountains. The valley floor is lush green with crops that get irrigation from the natural Elqui River, which is maintained by the Puclaro Reservoir, built at the end of the 1990s. The town of Vicuña is home to picturesque adobe houses as well the birthplace of 1945 Nobel Prize-winning poet, Gabriel Mistral, a cultural icon in Chile.
Due to its altitude, this part of Chile receives plenty of sunshine with very few cloudy days, so the valley has become a center for the production of grapes to make the famous pisco liquor. And with almost no humidity in its air, the Elqui Valley sits under one of the world’s clearest skies, making it a stargazing paradise charged with energy.
Many people go to Elqui seeking to align their chakras and connect with forces of the universe. An ancient Andean legend tells how a group of Tibetan monks built a monastery that was guarded by an invisible force somewhere between the coastal hills and the high peaks of the Andes. Scientific studies show the Elqui Valley is located exactly at the opposite pole of Lhasa, Tibet. The unique and distinctive characteristics of the region have made it a magnet for yoga centers and meditation.
