Two errant lines intersect in Chile, a TR with two perspectives.

[love_the_life]

It is a fabulous bougainvillea.

 

[jxv]

And I think Rooflyer wanted some views of central La Serena:

Some of your photos show mini bollards separating vehicular traffic from pedestrian areas. These used to be in the main shopping street too. I am very pleased to see that they have been removed. I cannot count the number of times I tripped over the b***** things!

Edit: looking for photos for my next post I realised that the things I tripped over were even worse than the mini bollards!

 

[jxv]

Fort at Coquimbo and the Cross of the Third Millenium which is a monument and church on a prominent peak. Brutalist and clunky concrete looking a bit tired but nontheless quite spectacular.

Despite your evil deeds I feel pity for you that the weather did not allow you good views from the Cruz del Tercer Milenio. Just to rub that in I attach some photos taken on a much more favourable day.

View towards La Serena


Towards La Herradura


Saturday morning soccer on two dirt fields

 

[drron]

JohnM the more I think about the more I am worried that jumbles has hatched an amazingly dastardly plan.I see vhe is feeding you great food and wine.I worry that he is trying to fatten you for becoming a sacrifice at an ancient Incan celebration.Or a more modern one with Easter coming up.

 

[JohnM]

Today we set out for two nights in the Elqui Valley, famous for its Pisco production. Now I am sure the evil dictator has further evil on his mind, but I shall press on blithely..

First stop was a dam where a howling wind coming up-vallley (strange in itself, I thought) just about blew us away. But at least we had escaped the coastal cloud that lurked below.



Next stop the Capel Pisco distillery and a guided tour. Just Juddles and me with the lovely guide that Juddles would not let me take home .

The Elqui, and four adjacent valleys, form the Chilean Pisco appellation, with about 10,000ha of grapes grown for Pisco distillation. The grapes are grown on trellising very much like for table grape production, where the hand-pickers can walk underneath the canopy. The main variety is Muscat and now is mid-harvest, so a good time to visit.

Pisco for the classic Pisco Sour is clear, being held in stainless steel tanks after distillation, while dark Piscos, more for drinking neat are matured in large wooden vats or small oak barrels.

 

[JohnM]

And into the distillation room and a tasting of the clear and dark versions.



Further up the valley, the most amazing avocado orchards on incredible slopes at about 12-1500m. I’m still trying to get my head around just what are the attributes of the site that warrant that effort.

 

[JohnM]

JohnM the more I think about the more I am worried that jumbles has hatched an amazingly dastardly plan.I see vhe is feeding you great food and wine.I worry that he is trying to fatten you for becoming a sacrifice at an ancient Incan celebration.Or a more modern one with Easter coming up.

Errr, thank you for that scary thought, sir.... I will try to be on my guard but somehow it seems to get undermined by my fiendish foe....

 

[juddles]

JohnM the more I think about the more I am worried that jumbles has hatched an amazingly dastardly plan.I see vhe is feeding you great food and wine.I worry that he is trying to fatten you for becoming a sacrifice at an ancient Incan celebration.Or a more modern one with Easter coming up.

Who me?

 

[JohnM]

Butter wouldn’t melt in his mouth .

Our digs for the next two nights:



And a vein of something running up a mountain, just for @RooFlyer.



To think what I put up with for this .

 

[RooFlyer]

When I visited Chile for the first time, in the mid 1990s (when I visited La Serena), I brought back with me a bottle of the local hooch, put it in the cabinet and promptly forgot about it.

When we returned from that trip with you John, my friends & I decided to have a 'South American' night with ceviche and pisco sours. A light bulb glowed dimly and I went to see if said bottle had survived about 4 house moves. It had, and the limes in my garden were abundant, so we damn near polished off the bottle - a good night it was!

There might be enough to have one more, so I shall break my period of being 'dry' this evening and give a toast of absent friends with - Capel Pisco

 

[jxv]

Today we set out for two nights in the Elqui Valley, famous for its Pisco production. Now I am sure the evil dictator has further evil on his mind, but I shall press on blithely..

First stop was a dam where a howling wind coming up-vallley (strange in itself, I thought) just about blew us away. But at least we had escaped the coastal cloud that lurked below.

Good to see that Pulcaro Dam is at or near full capacity! In 2011/2012 water storage for hydro-electric generation, here and elsewhere, was precariously low.

 

[jxv]

Our digs for the next two nights:

To think what I put up with for this .

Very hard to put up with!

Your drinks intrigue me. They have to be some pisco concoction, but you surely did not bring the green stuff from the beach? Kale is too healthy an option, is it possibly avocado?

 

[jxv]

When I visited Chile for the first time, in the mid 1990s (when I visited La Serena), I brought back with me a bottle of the local hooch, put it in the cabinet and promptly forgot about it.

When we returned from that trip with you John, my friends & I decided to have a 'South American' night with ceviche and pisco sours. A light bulb glowed dimly and I went to see if said bottle had survived about 4 house moves. It had, and the limes in my garden were abundant, so we damn near polished off the bottle - a good night it was!

There might be enough to have one more, so I shall break my period of being 'dry' this evening and give a toast of absent friends with - Capel Pisco


View attachment 158432

My improvisation today of Pisco sours, using the last few lemons on our tree.

 

[JohnM]

Very hard to put up with!

Your drinks intrigue me. They have to be some pisco concoction, but you surely did not bring the green stuff from the beach? Kale is too healthy an option, is it possibly avocado?

They were this place’s take on a (very strong) pisco sour. We couldn’t figure out what the green material was. It seemed tasteless in its own right.

Neither of us morphed into a superhero. If anything, I went backwards from there .

 

[drron]

They were this place’s take on a (very strong) pisco sour. We couldn’t figure out what the green material was. It seemed tasteless in its own right.

Neither of us morphed into a superhero. If anything, I went backwards from there .

I did warn you.

 

[love_the_life]

It seems that your pisco beverages have encouraged other AFFers to break out the bottles.

 

[craven morehead]

Mmmmm ... mining ....

Settle down mate

 

[craven morehead]

Geez .... I've had a good chuckle catching up on this TR. Something of a juxtaposition I think may be the term you blokes crack me up!

 

[juddles]

OMG people, this has become a truly daunting experience. I am used to simply fighting clear evil, but this is the first time I have had to face an enemy so skilled in counter-intelligence, in public opinion, in distortion of reality....

After the sheer life or death altercation around the bougainvillea, we somehow fell back to a farsical truce of spy-vs-spy. Everything is false, EVERYTHING! So we now are in an eternal almost comedy routine of pretending. Pretending he is a guest, and me a host. Strained smiles, polite but hollow gestures and interactions. An obscene dance.

I play the game, but ever more vigilant. Still feeling the unease that I am always playing catchup, that The Botanist is guiding or even USING me like a puppet. I feel he is actually using my necessary need for eternal vigilance to exhaust me. I catch a momentary wink of sleep and immediately wake to find more false posts in this thread.

For example:

 

[juddles]

.....
First stop was a dam where a howling wind coming up-vallley (strange in itself, I thought) just about blew us away. But at least we had escaped the coastal cloud that lurked below.

View attachment 158408.....

How dare this mongrel post such falsities!! He has shown photos of a visit to my beautiful lake in the Elqui. If you mindlessly followed his influence (as is no doubt his intent), you could mistake it for a nice scenic stopover on a scenic tour, innocent. But it is far from so.

As we drove up the Valley, he suddenly said to me “Oh, goody goody, there appears to be a lookout. Can we stop? “ He actually batted his eyelids. As a nice person, yet again I was caught off guard, and into the lookout we duly went.

Through sheer exhaustion I did not initially realise the enormity of what was being manipulated, but being a superhero, despite my state, I realized just in time what was actually transpiring. This bugger had manipulated me to drive him to the water reservoir that serves almost the entire IV region. Here I had literally driven the evil biological criminal to the literal water’s edge!

I forced him to keep his hands in his pockets the whole time we were there. I was not totally secure with such, but at least I felt I had managed to control the situation. It confirmed to me his intent in the way he wailed. Shiite about wanting to take more photos, that he needed to adjust his glasses, etc etc. All feeble attempts to free his hands and unleash the mayhem he clearly intended.



I won that round. But as ever, this left me spent.