Vicuna

In the morning, I headed back to the Santiago airport to take a short plane ride to La Serena. La Serena airport is small and I was out on the street in 2 minutes. I waited on the road for about 15 minutes until a bus rushing towards me and flashing his lights had a "Vicuna" sign. The bus was already full, but I hoped on anyways. An hour later, I was in Vicuna.

I checked in to my hostel and one of my roommates was Hugo, a french guy who has been travel for few months coming from the North (starting in Columbia). We met up again during my stay and he had some nice suggestions and some bad experiences (such as being robbed at gun point in Cali!). The hostel was cool and had multiple outdoor areas. In the garden, I met with Celie, also french, who has been traveling for few months in Chile and Argentina, and is on her way to Bolivia and Peru.

After grabbing some food and doing some work, I went to Elki Magic, a bike shop run by a Chilean-French couple (Lincoln and Adeline). I mainly went to Vicuna because I read of a downhill bike ride organized by Elki Magic, and seeing that mountains surround Vicuna on all sides, I was super excited for some downhill mountain biking.

To my surprise, the downhill tour was not actually a mountain biking tour, but a 54km bike ride going from Alcohuaz (at 1700m of altitude) back to Vicuna (600m of altitude). On the way, you get to drink Pisco, wine AND beer! Sign me up. I was planning on staying 2 nights in Vicuna and one night in La Serena, but the bike tour was booked for the next day, and it would have been rushed to get back to La Serena after the tour. Adeline convinced me to skip La Serena and stay in Vicuna for a third night.

I went back to the hostel and hung out with Celie. We decided to hike up one of the mountains to view the sunset. It was very impressive.

At night, I had booked a tour at the Mamalluca observatory. A car picked me up from the town center and drove about 20 minutes up the mountain. In the car, I met more french people :) (Martine, Anna and Gael). The moon was very bright (not best for viewing) but the tour was still interesting. Our guide was super fun and I actually did learn quite a few new things.

The next morning, I did some work and then went back to Elki Magic to rent a bike for the afternoon. There is a short 18km loop that passes through a bunch of pisquerias and a brewery. I stopped by few pisquerias, but there was no one at the reception. It must have been their siesta time. So I continued on to the brewery where I bumped into Hugo. We drank some beers and then Anna and Gael walked in. So we all drank together some more and they shared their travel stories and recommendations.

The next day, I met Adeline and Lincoln at 9am to go over the downhill tour. 3 other people were going to be part of the group, and no surprise there, they were all French (Chloe, Justine and Pierre). They were really nice and we stuck together going down the hill. Lincoln drove us up to Alcohuaz and we began our downhill trip. The views were incredible and the contrast in scenery is impressive. Lush green (vines and avocado trees) in the middle of a hot and dry dessert.

A few kilometers in, we stopped at the first pisqueria, had some Pisco sour, took a tour (in Spanish, so missed 90% of the information) and then different Pisco tastings. We continued on and then stopped at a winery and then to have Copao (cactus fruit) juice; so delicious and refreshing. We kept on biking, battling some strong winds until we got to the brewery for more beers and some papas (french fries).

Chloe, Justine and Pierre has actually met the day before, doing an astronomy tour at a private house (Desde el Jardin) and they highly recommended it. So I booked the tour for that night. The group was much smaller than Mamalluca (5 French, 3 Germans and me), but it was in Spanish. I think I mostly got everything as the host were very friendly. After the tour (around 12am), they invited us in for tea, homemade bread and jam.

The next morning, I caught the bus back to La Serena airport at 8am to head to Pucon.