Valle

This past Saturday morning I went to Valle del Elqui with Will, Nelly, Leyla, Kathy, and the two Chilean girls'  boyfriends. (side note: we were planning on leaving at 9:00, and I got there a bit late at ~9:10. Didn't matter because people function on Chilean time. The people who lived there were still waking up, and the others didn't get there 'til about 10. We ended up leaving at about 10:30.) It's a pretty drive of just over an hour, but I was tired after a late night and slept through a fair amount of it.

We arrived at the cabaña, nestled in a small valley between two big hills and about five minutes by car away from the main town of Vicuña.

It was HOT in Valle del Elqui - probably in the mid eighties, maybe up to the nineties. Since it's farther removed from the coast than La Serena, I suppose it heats up a lot more. I was able to wear my jorts for the first time in months, which felt pretty awesome. There was  a pool as a part of the little complex of cabañas, which I had planned on swimming on Saturday but didn't get around to it.

... I was too busy reading on a lounge chair in the sun.

I exhausted my supply of four books written in English a week or two after arriving in Chile, so I was reading in Spanish this time around. I've been making slow progress on Harry Potter y el misterio del príncipe (Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince). I had a sheet of paper and a pen with me to write down vocabulary words - from Saturday to Sunday I wrote down over 400 just from reading.

We went to Vicuña to pick up some food items we hadn't brought with us - including ice cream. The ice cream there was phenomenal. We got four flavors: canela (cinnamon), coco (coconut), vainilla (you can figure that one out), and mango (passionfruit. kidding. mango, obviously). I had a lovely moment where I mentioned that I didn't like coca ice cream. Which means: "I don't like cocaine ice cream."
... oops! Everyone laughed and then someone corrected me. Could have been worse.

Saturday evening Will and I walked up one of the nearby hills to get some pictures of the sunset, which wasn't as stunning as we had hoped but the view itself that the vantage point afforded was well worth it. Quite spectacular.

You could see the moon! 

I loved the double gradient in this scene - the sky and the mountains.

We went down the hill before it was too dark and enjoyed barbecued food that David was making. It was an early night for me - I ended up getting 10 or 11 hours of sleep, which hadn't happened in a long time!

I woke up feeling well rested. Hopped in the pool, read some more, and overall just relaxed. We had leftovers from the asado for lunch and then packed up and drove home. A lovely weekend!