I am rather proud of this shot, and feel that it captures the essence rather well.Welcome to the Elqui Valley.
This past weekend three friends and I took a bus 8 hours north of Viña to La Serena, inland of which lies the Elqui Valley where the vast majority of pisco is produced. I don't believe I've mentioned pisco yet, so here's the long story. Pisco is a clear brandy made from the distillation of wine. A good pisco is smooth and has a perfume-like aroma. In general, the higher the alcohol content of a given Pisco, the higher the quality. High-quality pisco can be consumed plain or on ice, and lower quality piscos are used to mix drinks. In Chile, pisco is very very cheap, usually half to one-third of the price of the nearest whiskey, vodka, rum etc. A very high quality bottle of pisco costs about 18 dollars, and the cheapest costs about $2.50, to give an idea. Many drinks are made with pisco in Chile including piscolas, pisco and sprite, pisco and tonic, etc. The most famous, however, and the drink for which Chile is known is the Pisco Sour. Contrary to the name, there is nothing sour about a pisco sour. There are a plethora of recipies for this concoction, but generally it involves some combination of pisco, lemon or lime juice, sugar, an egg white, and ice and is served in a glass with a powdered sugar-coated rim. When ordered in a bar/restaurant, these taste like an oversweet margarita with bad tequila. (The first time I ordered one I was expecting a salted rim...needless to say it was severely disappointing to encounter powdered sugar.) In very select places, and when they are homeade, they are quite refreshing and easy to drink (hence the popularity), but still generally too sweet for my liking. I toured a pisco distillery while I was in the valley, but more on that process later.
Thursday at 11 pm we took a bus from Viña to La Serena, and from La Serena caught a bus to Vicuña, a town 2 hours up the valley. We arrived in Vicuña at 7:30 am Friday morning, and absolutely nothing was open. Vicuña is a small town home to the Capel pisco distillery, and not much else. Capel is a cheap brand of pisco, and subsequently very popular. We carried our bags to the town plaza and rested on the benches for about an hour while waiting for the supermarket to open. We took turns watching the bags (read: sleeping on a bench hugging a backpack) and walking around town seeing the sights. Because we planned on camping farther up the valley, we waited for the supermarket to open and then bought the food we'd need for the weekend. (Jeff bought 18 eggs, 10 of which survived to be eaten the next day.) After we had our supplies, we caught a bus up the valley to the town of Pisco Elqui, population 1,000.
Although small, Pisco Elqui is quite an interesting town, and obviously has tourist traffic during part of the year (evidenced by the presence of expensive restaraunts and a discotheque). The climate is that of a desert--days are dry and hot and nights are dry and cold. The micro dropped us off in the plaza (beautiful, see photo below) and we began our search for a campsite. Eventually we found a really nice one down by the river, and set up camp. The next day, we had the awesome idea to go for a hike. The previous day, Kevin and Jeff had selected a mountain to ascend, so we set off for our hike immediately after waking up, at the ambitious hour of 2 pm. Turns out hiking up a sandy desert mountain 1000 meters up without a trail, in the heat of the day, with 6 pounds of water is an ambitous undertaking. It was hard, and at times very sketchy, and after about 3 hours we turned around and headed back to the campsite. That night we had an awesome barbecue (a steak apiece and a whole chicken) and met some other campers.
Sunday we picked up camp and headed up to the town. There was some strange religious festival going on, so the town was crowded with chilean tourists. It was a blast, and very relaxing. In the afternoon, I took a tour of a pisco distillery with two other people. I learned a lot about pisco, and since I find the information fascinating, I am going to share it with you.
Pisco is made from one of many varieties of white grapes. The sugar content of the grapes is very important, since the yeast fermentation produces alcohol from the sugar in the grapes. The more sugar per pound of grapes, the more alcohol is produced. High sugar content = high productivity = high profit margin. The desert conditions of the valley somehow combine to increase the sugar content of the grapes, hence the rampant pisco production. (It has something to do with the temperature difference between night and day, as well as the arid conditions, but I didn't really catch this part of the tour.) The variety of grapes used by Tres R(the distillery I visited, pronounced "tres erre"), uses a variety of grape called Moscatel for just this reason. The grapes are harvested, and brought to the distillery, where they are juiced in a number of complicated steps. The juice is then fermented 10-12 days to make wine. Theoretically, this wine could be sold and distributed as well, but according to the tour guide the color is not very appealing and it probably would not sell. After the fermentation, the wine is placed in a large double-distiller, and the pure alcohol is separated from the water due to the difference in boiling point. (Thank you Organic chemistry lab.) At this point, the alcohol is placed in large casks and left to age for 2 months. After two months, water is added to dilute it to the proper level (Pisco ranges from 30 to 50 percent alcohol, 60 to 100 proof), and the whole thing is aged another 4 months. It is important to age the water and the pisco together in the casks so that the water takes on the same flavor/scent as the alcohol. After the 6 month aging process is finished, the pisco is bottled and shipped out, ready to drink.
After the tour, the group split up. Kevin and Jeff decided to stay another night in Pisco Elqui, and Luke and I headed back to Vicuña to go on a tour of an observatory. Why an astronomical observatory? The night skies in the area are amazlingly clear, and since there is no water to make clouds, the view of the stars is very rarely obstructed. Unfortunately, when we were there the moon was full, so the stars were not as brilliant as usual, and only the brightest stars were visible. Anyway, we had made reservations with an observatory, and at 9 oclock we got on the bus and drove out of town. The tour was really interesting. We got to see Alpha Centauri (the closest star to us--with the naked eye it looks like one star, but through the telescope you see that it is actually two separate stars. We also got to see many of the astrological consellations: sagittarius, capricorn, scorpio, etc. Most of them require quite a bit of imagination to see, but scorpio is really cool (and gigantic) and it actually looks like a scorpion. Bacan. Unfortunately, that night Kevin and Jeff were robbed of everything but the clothes they were wearing and their wallets. They had been talking with some Chileans and when they left their backpacks for 20 minutes the Chileans took off with all their stuff. They had to travel back in their shorts and t-shirts.
Luke and I spent monday riding buses, and because it was a long weekend we had to find a very creative way home. Oh, did I mention the bus broke down? It wasn't nearly as traumatic as the micro failure, but I'm still adding it to the list. (ascensor---check. micro---check. bus---check.) Hope all is well at home, here are some photos of the weekend.
The plaza in Pisco Elqui.
This photo gives a good idea of the valley. Because there is so little flat land, many vineyards extend up the hills on rediculously steep grades.
Vineyard, mountains.
See the peak to the left in the background? That´s the one we tried to climb up.
The double distiller. The wine is put in the big steel thing and heated. The steam moves through the copper tube and re-condenses into the small glass jar on the left of the picture.
Bus break down.Andrius
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