Solar Cooking, Pisco Grapes, Geo-Magnetic Energy
Trip Start
Sep 29, 2007
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Trip End
Ongoing
Pisco Elqui,
Chile
Wednesday, March 19, 2008
Spiritual wanderers and gurus of meditation, yoga, astrology and the like, settled in Chile's Elqui Valley in the 1960's. Their search led them to this location, at 30 degrees South and 70 degrees West, a place where two rivers (the Turbio and Claro) act as the ying and yang of Earth's new water chakra or "Svadhisthana." Astrology tells us that for the past 2000 years, Earth's previous magnetic center was located at 30 degrees North in the Himalayas, in Tibet
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. That however, was in the Age of Pisces. Today, in the Age of Aquarius, the magnetic core has flopped hemispheres to 30 degrees South. In 1982, scientists measured Earth's magnetic forces for the first time by satellite. Sure enough, the hippies were right on, Go hippies go! The satellites found the Earth's greatest point of energy in South America, around Chile's Elqui Valley. The area still attracts many mystics and communes have set up shop up all over the place. We took a full day tour that really just gave us a glimpse into the area. We passed Coquimbo town where the pirates live, they are really just rowdy fishermen who are still searching for pirate treasure believed to have been sunk here back in the pirate day. Once we crossed passed a particular mountain, the cold fog from La Serena lifted and the warmth of the sun took over. The tour took us through beautiful farm land where avocados, grapes, strawberries and papaya fruit grew. Workers were in the fields harvesting fruits. The mystical landscape was high, dry mountains then the lush, green valley nestled between them where the fruits grow. The best viewpoint for this was at a place called Grande Mountain. A magikal place.
We visited a dam and saw the river that irrigates the entire valley, a good set up. Whilst visiting the dam and standing next to a wind harp, i took a picture of some cactus silhouetted against the sky. The photo on my camera screen seemed to have a strange apparition slashed across it that looks like a rainbow coloured dome. I took the photo again, same apparition. It was getting a little twilight zone, we are still not sure what the image is and i will post it for suggestions later. We had just eaten some hairy fruit picked from a cactus, it tasted of a kiwi fruit but is hardly worth it for the amount of sugar you have to add to get it to taste decent
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. We went to the Olivier papaya factory where we tasted some bloody awful papaya syrup, again, the sugar additive helped. Nobody bought any except for the Chilean couple on holidays. The papaya is prepared in many ways including dried, in marmalade and in syrups, it all tastes bad.
We went to the museum of Gabriela Mistral who lived from 1889-1957, she was a famous Chilean poetess and winner of the Noble Peace Prize for Literature in 1945. There was a Gabriela head statue taking up a huge space in one of the towns we visited, it resembled a masculine looking demon. When we saw the museum i realized that she did actually have a large head.
We also went to the town of Vicuna and ate Pisco Sour ice-cream, it was so bad that i slyly shoved mine in the first rubbish bin i could find. We went to a bug museum that had stuffed birds, shells, butterflies, dinosaur bones and fish fossils. The claim to fame there was a long scorpion. I love these insect places.
The Elqui Valley is also the country's number one producer of Pisco, the national alcohol of choice
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. From the southern reaches of Chile to its northern deserts, Pisco is a national pride and punishment. Pisco is most commonly made from the Muscatel Rose, Alexandria Muscatel and Austrian Muscatel grapes. Similar to wine production, the grapes are harvested, fermented, distilled, and stored in wooden barrels to taste. We visited a major fermenting factory in the area where we saw the process, picked grapes from the vine, ate figs and olives from trees and got busy tasting the Pisco. It took all our discipline to stop ourselves from diving head first into the large vats of freshly picked, juicy, plump grapes, they really wanted stomped on with our bare feet. A bottle of good Pisco bought at the source only sets you back the dangerous price of 1,500 pesos (about $3 US). We had an interesting lunch at the pioneering solar restaurant "Villaseca" where all the food was cooked using solar power and the venue is surrounded by cactus and desert. The area is ideally suited to the solar energy use as it is blessed with 310 days of sunshine in a year and plagued by dramatic fuel scarcity. The open-air restaurant uses ten large reflecting ovens and provides employment for members of 26 families. We were particularly impressed with a large disk with mirror mosaic all over it. The disk was positioned so that the mirrors reflected the suns heat onto onto a hot plate where a kettle was boiling water
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. The owners also use homegrown organic vegetables. I tried goat which was more tender than expected. Baaaa!! I am so a carnivore now.Another bonus on the tour was the presence of a Chilean couple on holidays that sat next to us on the bus. These sweeties bought tacky souvenirs at every stop, had their photo taken, took pictures of us, chain smoked and filmed the entire tour on video camera, pity the relatives and friends who sit through these home movies.
Nadine tried to collect some of the energy rocks from the area to give to Jules on our return but it turns out she had collected some of the gravel that they use to build the road with.
