We wanted to get more into the Elqui valley so we took a local bus which brought us higher and higher to the small village of Pisco Elqui. Although this valley is famous for having more than 300 sunny days a year, the sky was cloudy. This little village has a very laid back and some kind of mystical character and it would definitely be worth to stay more than just some hours. After walking through the small streets we had a grandma’s meal – delicious.

As you can see in the pictures, this region is a desert. Having that much sun, they use the fields to produce very sweet grapes – perfect for licors, in this region the so called “Pisco”. It can have from 30 to 50% of pure alcohol and the traditional drink in Chile is Pisco Sour. 

We went back to our hotel, picked up our backpacks and moved on to La Serena. As our next destination was in the far north of Chile we had a 16 hours night bus ride to San Pedro de Atacama. These bed buses are equipped with business class seats. Instead of 4 seats in a row there are just 3. They serve snacks for dinner and we even got breakfast. The time passed by surprisingly fast and we soon arrived to San Pedro de Atacama, a village in the Atacama desert – also known as the driest desert in the world, not having rainfall since years.