La Serena

In March I took a trip up to La Serena with Bostjan, Sarah, Gabi and Cristian. We stopped on the way at Fray Jorge national park. Its a mountain in the desert that manages to trap enough moisture from the clouds that collide with it to grow a lush forest growing on its peak with nothing but sand and cacti for hundreds of kilometers in any direction. Pretty impressive. This picture is of me playing in the wind on the way up the mountain., with our rental car in the background. Thanks to Sarah's driving and nothing short of a miracle we made it up the mountain without having to get out and push (a common experience for me and Bostjan on the previous weekend's trip to Cajon del Maipo)

Here's Cristian and I at the top of the mountain standing in front of the park ranger's motorcycle. I debated getting on it for the photo, but decided against it when we saw him walking towards us. Apparently Cristian has never seen "Easy Rider"...

SMALL CHILDREN AND THE WEAK OF STOMACH, SHIELD YOUR EYES!!

Yes, its a dead sea lion, and yes we appear to be walking calmly past. Photos can be deceiving, we're in fact fleeing the smell and looking for a place where we can enjoy the beach and the sunset without being swarmed by flies and smell of...well, you get it. We were pretty surprised to arrive at the beach everyone had recommended to us as the most isolated and beautiful and find this sea lion washed up on the shore. The most discouraging is that it didn't seem that anyone minded. Kids were touching it as their parents looked on, and families moved past with a nod and a "look at that. Huh, how sad." So we moved down the beach and Gabi, Cristian and I drank our beers while Sarah and Bostjan practiced capoeira. I think they pulled the short stick...

After La Serena we made our way up the Valle del Elqui, where most of the Pisco comes from. We also picked up two friends of Bostjan, Uli and Carmela. We were now seven and had three hours to drive to get to the campsite at the end of the valley. As you can see, the car was a bit cramped...We ended up camping just above a town named Cochiwaz (I think) where we watched the moon rise over the mountain, drank mate and rickly pear juice with the hippy owners of the campground, went swimming in the stream, and slept in the hammocks by the river. The region around La Serena, especially in the valley and north, has some of the clearest skies in the world and for this reason some of the most important observatories. i don't know much about stars, even less about southern stars, but the sky that night was one of the most beautiful I've seen. On top of which we had a full moon. Not a bad weekend escape.

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