La La La LA SERENA!!!

The week after the 18th passed normally here in Chile, we had class, went to the beach, talked spanish.  The weekend after the 18th we found ourselves in Santiago watching the presidential debate with the other Chilean students from Universidad Adolfo Ibanez, which was an awesome experience because we were able to get a more global (or at least foreign) idea of how our country is viewed.  I was surprised as to how even the Chileans were split between Obama and McCain, I had thought they were more in support of Obama, but I guess that is what the experience was for, to see this.  A small group of us then spent the night in Bella Vista, the Bohemian neighborhood in Santiago and went out to eat and then to a club.  It was really fun!

The following weekend about 15 of us went to La Serena, and the adjoining Valley Elqui, which boasts the clearest skies in the world, over 320 sunny days a year!  We arrived on a Friday, which just happened to be cloudy, and spent the day exploring beautiful La Serena, which just might be my favorite Chilean city.  It is smaller than Viña and just has more of a Chilean feel to it (which might be due to the fact that no one speaks english).  

This is a church in the center of the city.  It is really awesome because all around it are road side vendors, cars, people yelling, but inside it is silent.  It's like walking into a different world.
La Recova is an artesania in the center of La Serena.  These are pretty typical of Chilean towns, and are basically places where the artisans come to sell their wares.  This was a really huge one, and I think just about everyone in the group bought something.

The night after our tour of La Serena we cooked a delicious meal of Pasta Rafael with plenty of Chilean wine!  It was spectacular but, as expected, once it came time for the cooks to eat, there were no plates left...

The following day we took a tour of the Elqui Valley, and saw some of the spectacularly beautiful sights, including this of the dam over the river elqui.  It is interesting to see that this is usually an arid landscape (cactus), but with the damn it has become a lake.

Yeah... I'm pretty hard core (the sign says "Warning, don't sit on the wall")

We ate at a restaurant where all of the food was cooked with solar ovens, so I had to get  a picture... what can I say, It's kind of my thing!
A large percentage of the grapes for pisco and wine in Chile come from the Elqui valley, due to its abundance of sun.  This is a picture of a vineyard on the banks of the Elqui river. 

We also took a tour of a pisqueria, which is a place where pisco (the national drink of Chile, consisting of fermented white wine) is made.  Chile produces between 50,000,000 and 55,000,000 liters of pisco every year, and exports only 5,000,000, leaving over 45 million liters of pisco between the 16 million inhabitants!  On the tour we were able to try a little pisco, but only after trying the aguardiente that is can be made by the same process (about 150 proof).  It was horrible, but made the pisco taste really good!

Our last day in La Serena was spent on the beach, right behind this lighthouse.  All said and done, a slight sunburn was all I have to show for this day, but it was a much needed rest after a full trip.