El Jardin Secreto

After a restless 7 hour nightime bus ride up to La Serena and then over to Pisqo Elqui I realized I had messed up.  Me and my friend Max Rome, who has been traveling in Chile by bike for the bast 4 months, had made vague plans to meet up in Valle De Elqui.  We chose Valle de Elqui because it is supposed to be ripe with good energy.  Literally, they say that the magnetic center of the earth used to be in Tibet and has recently moved to this valle after an earthquake or something like that.  Whether or not there is good energy, there sure is a lot of massage, yoga and spiritual bullshit going on there. (My favorite example of this was someone´s tag of òm shree`painted all over the place).

I took the overnight bus without telling Max that I would be arriving in the morning the next day, so I showed up without any way of finding him or his 2 friends from Amsterdam that he has been traveling with. Because I didn´t sleep much on the bus, I promplty found a hostal and took a nap, hung out there and talked to some Danish dudes until I got a call from Max around 6pm.

Max, Rachel and Thomas had been staying at a friend`s house in Pisqo Elqui.  Max took me there.  Alexandra, who was the owner of the house rents the space out during the summer season, we were able to use it for free.  The house was amazing, it reminded me of Pompanuck-- a stone home, built by a family, beautiful gardens and mini canals strategically placed on the landscape.

 We were able to get comfortable here.  We cooked up a storm, making dinners of goat cheese burgers, avacado crepes and pomogranate cookies.

Rachel and Thomas are my sweet new friends who I will hopefully be camping with this next week in San Pedro de Atacama.  They have been traveling for 6 months, starting from the very tip of South America, they will finish their trip in December when they reach Colombia.