So now we're onto the next chapter of the trip, the Norte Chico or "Little North". It's known as "chico" to differentiate it from the Norte Grande; the former is 800kms stretching from just north of Santiago up to the start of the Atacama desert, whilst the latter is over a 1000kms of mostly desert until you reach the border with Peru. On our way to the small north we got on a bus in Santiago's Terminal Borja headed for La Serena, which we reached 5 hours later. Last year we had already used the Chilean bus system extensively and we can still totally recommend it, if you don't have strict time constraints. Trains are rare in Chile, and flying is a lot more expensive, so using the excellent buses is a great option.
The scenery starts changing dramatically as you head north out f Santiago, so it's actually quite interesting to just look out of the bus window and observe how the mountains and greener valleys give way to drier and drier landscapes.
The first night after the bus ride we spent it at my cousin Keny's house (after yet more parrillada and wine) and then it was off the next day to rent a car, see a little bit of La Serena and then to tour the Valle del Limari and Valle del Elqui. First stop was Ovalle, where we dropped my cousin as she was teaching there that afternoon. With a little hand-drawn map done by my cousin the night before we continued to Monte Patria, to find the house where my grandparents had lived and where my mum was born and brought up in. It took a couple of drives around the little town since we were not having any luck finding the house, and I'm sure people were beginning to wonder what we were up to. We tried one more final time from the other end of town, and found a small dirt road that lead us to the house in La Palma, 492. The outside wall was showing a few cracks from the 1997 earthquake that hit this area, but it was still as I remembered it from years back.
We then continued our drive to Hurtado, in a dark winding stretch of road. Days are quite short at this time of year, with the sun setting at around 6.30pm, so by the time we got to the little mountain village, and the hacienda we were planning to stay in, it was pitch dark. The Hacienda de Los Andes is actually owned by a German couple, and although they were not there, a German girl was there to greet us, make us some dinner and show us our room.
A really loud rumbling noise and substantial shaking woke us up the next day at around 6am: We were actually experiencing our first real tremor in Chile. Nothing happened, but we were still pretty much awake afterwards. Good time to take a walk in the really pretty mountain area that surrounds the hacienda, so after breakfast we headed out for the trail, going from sunburnt slopes to the little river running through the valley. The valley theme continued afterwards, as we navigated our trusty little Urban Cruiser over a certainly not urban road to the town of Vicuña. Not urban in this case meant a 90km gravel road covering a good 2500 meters of elevation up and down.
Vicuña made for a quick stop over only, our real destination for the day was Pisco Elqui, a little town in another valley, where the famous traditional drink comes from. Well, there is a longer story to it involving Peru of course, but that is a different story. As fitting for the place, we visited one of the oldest distilleries of Chile and got a taste of the product on offer. We also overnighted in a so-called astro-lodge: a two stories, open dome-shaped tent, with telescopes handy to watch the night sky - only that it was the night of full moon, so there wasn't much to see beyond our planet's silver glowing satellite. Sky-related issues continued the next day, as the famous observatories in the region had to cancel their public sessions due to weather issues. Instead we visited the Gabriela Mistral museum, Latin-America's first Literature Nobel Prize winner. We then headed back for La Serena early, well in time for another family dinner. This time we were invited by my cousin Carola and and her family, where we got to catch up on family news and we learned a lot about the South American train system from Ignacio, Keny's 18 year old son.
Early the next day we got a bus for another 400kms drive north to Copiapo, made famous last year because it was near here that the 33 miners were trapped. Our reason for stopping here, besides being on the way to our final destination, San Pedro de Atacama, was to stop over in the nearby town of Caldera. Here we met up with Barbara, a childhood friend of my sister, and also checked out Bahia Inglesa, one of the most beautiful beaches of the whole Chilean coast.
With over 800kms travelled, the Norte Chico did not seem so chico to us after all.
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