Tour to the Elqui Valley was a severe disappointment. The valley itself is beautiful and would have enjoyed it a lot more, but the tour company and description was super misleading and completely incorrect.
The day ended up being a mixed bag and kind of a waste of time. All in all, the first bad tour in 46 days, I guess you can’t win them all.
Logistics
Waited in the morning to get off the ship. Woke up at 6:30 and went down to check the disembarkation process, but the ramp wasn’t even constructed yet. Watched them put it together and we got off the ship around 7:30. Had to wait for a shuttle bus to the terminal, which was a lot further away than I originally expected (still only like a 5 minute drive).
We got to the terminal, and my instructions were that the guide would be waiting for me with a sign with my name, but I looked all over and couldn’t find them, so ended up walking outside, and going to the parking lot walking around trying to find the guide. Ended up sending a message over whatsapp to the “emergency line” that was given to me for the tour. Didn’t get a response for about 5 minutes, and was just standing there waiting in the parking lot for awhile, before I noticed a group of guides walking toward the terminal. They were just leisurely chatting with each other, and I finally flagged one of them down, and they had my name on a clipboard.
He then wandered around the parkinglot for a bit, and we didn’t know where the car was. He talked to someone and we started walking to the end of the parking lot only to talk to someone else and walk back to the front of the parking lot. We finally flagged someone down, and they introduced themselves to each other and we got into a small sedan. It didn’t seem that the guide and driver had ever met each other or knew what was going on which was my first yellow flag. At this point, I thought about just getting out of the car and bailing cause it seemed a little sketchy to begin with. We finally left around 8:30…..about 1.5hr past when we were originally supposed to leave.
Elqui Valley Tour
Faro Monumental de La Serena (Lighthouse)
First stop was at a lighthouse. Kind of nice, because of the haze and weather there were not a ton of people around. Lots of stray dogs around that the tour guide called “a big problem in Chile” :(. There was one in particular that really looked similar to Leia and made me a little sad for them. It looked so cute just squatting on part of the wall.
Embalse Puclaro (Resevoir)
Next, we headed a ways out to the artificial resevoir that was actually REALLY low with water. Apparently they’ve had about 10 years of low water / drought, and the level of water is much lower now. Kind of interesting, and lovely views…one of the things that I started to notice on the way was that while the guide had clearly rehearsed and followed a specific script, and question I asked him, he just couldn’t answer. Things like, how much water was there before and whether condors came down that far, or what town that was in the distance, basic things he didn’t have any answers for.
I mostly wandered off on my own then and took in the views.
Really sad, but in today’s edition of humans are the worst….just one small example of more trash out in the wild.
Pisco Factory
We then headed to what was supposed to be the highlight of the tour. This region is known for pisco, and while I’m not a huge drinker, I was looking forward to touring and learning about the process, etc. We got to the factory, and as we walked around, the guide told me that we had to just stand there and wait for other people.
Not really sure why, as that’s the whole point of a private tour, is to not be herded along with the huge crowd of people. To my dismay, as I waited, two big buses and two other cargo vans pulled up with people from the cruise ship — which is fine, at this point I know most of them and they’re good people, but I don’t really want to be herded along (and if I’m going to do that, I would’ve just paid for the normal bus tour…). We waited for everyone to get there, and then they herded us into a small museum where they started to give a very stock / rehearsed talk through the museum, it wasn’t even a place where we could go ourselves. In the crowd I counted at least 4 selfie sticks obstructing views and recording the whole thing, so as we moved to the next room, I asked my guide if we were going to actually see the vineyards / pisco, etc, and he said it was just the museum — again, I’m not sure he actually knew anything, but at this point, I asked to just leave, cause I didn’t see the point in being in a private tour being grouped with everyone.
Vicuña
We then went to Vicuña, which was a nice little town, and we walked around town square. It’s a good thing we had left early, cause parking was a mess, and that’s WITHOUT the rest of the tours that were behind us at the pisco factory. Interesting square and some nice buildings as we went along as well.
We then went into a little street market with the “largest map of the elqui valley”….I’m not sure if that’s even true, but that’s what he told me.
Museo Gabriela Mistral de Vicuña
We then made the quick 2 minute drive (could have just walked) over to the museum that recreated the house of Gabriela Mistral, a famous chilean poet who won the Nobel Prize. Really nice space, and lovely gardens in the back as well. Tried asking a couple questions about her, but the guide didn’t really know anything, except really liked saying her full name over and over.
Entre Cordillera Restobar (Solar Restaurant)
We then headed over to have lunch in an area that is apparently famous for their use of solar energy. Drove past a solar farm, but they also use and harness solar power for cooking as well. As we pulled up to the restaurant, we saw a bunch of solar dishes that focus the suns power to a point that heats stuff up. They said it can go from 0 to 300 degrees in 2 seconds. Restaurant can be found on Instagram.
Lunch was freaking delicious. Asked the guide what he recommended as he asked me what I wanted for lunch and presented me with a paper that was all in spanish, with no translation at all. He then proceeded to try to translate, and all I could get was “pig, chicken, vegetable, local dish”. So I went with the local dish.
Ended up with locro (really nice stew with some meat and corn), charquicán (almost like a mashed potato / pumpkin with meat), and then finished off with watermelon. Lunch itself was delicious, but the conversation at the table was kind of painful as there wasn’t much to talk about. I showed the guide and driver some of the pictures from the trip, and then since there wasn’t much conversation, I asked the big debate question of “how many watermelons would you bring to a picnic / bbq for 50 people”. They’re on my side that they would bring more than less, but they also went BIG, with 100 watermelons (oh my).
Cerveza Ruta 41 (Beer Garden Distillery)
After lunch, we headed to to a beer distillery (Instagram), and we got there and there wasn’t any there. A few workers were cleaning up, but other than that, no one around. I was wandering around taking pictures, and then the guide came up and told me that he had called the guy that was supposed to be here, and he was here, but then apparently left and was no where to be found. So we couldn’t actually do anything here, so we headed back to port.
Detour (Starbucks)
Since we had an extra 1.5hrs because of the skipped stops, we made a detour through La Serena to a mall, so that I could get my starbucks mugs. Hilariously, they didn’t have any La Serena or Coquimbo mugs, but they did have Santiago and Valparaiso mugs, so I grabbed those.
More hilariously, as we got off the escalator, I found my namesake cafe staring at me.
In the car, they tried to get me to fill out a paper survey for the tour, and I was half expecting them to not let me out of the car, since I gave them a bad review on paper. But they got me back to the terminal.
Return to Ship
We got back to the ship, and there was a really long line waiting for the shuttle buses to get back to the ship. I was there around 3, so I wasn’t too worried, but there were a lot of people behind me that were cutting it close (like some crew that also needed to be back at 3). They finally started bringing buses so that it wasn’t just one at a time, and we got back eventually onto the ship.
Some cute puppers taking a nap around the line as well. Poor doggos.
Views and Pirates? PIRATES.
Headed up to deck 12 to catch some views before we left, and got some great panoramic views, when all of a sudden I heard some loud noises, and looked down to find that there were PIRATE ships right off our port side.
Food
Took a nap to get over my disappointment, and then zombie walked over to dinner late at night. Tuna carpaccio, stuffed pasta and profiteroles with some vanilla ice cream to finish it off. The tuna was delightful.
Running Update
Got a nice run in on the deck after dinner. It was VERY nice outside. Not a ton of wind, and temperature was nice and cool.
Vibe Check
2 parts joy
2 parts sadness – for tour
1 part anger – for tour
Feedback
Leave a comment or question if you have any thoughts! Anything you want to know about as we go around the world? Any things you want to share as feedback, or any images that particularly spoke to you. I’ll try to read all of them as time permits!
Matti 
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