Day 54 – Coquimbo, Chile

Coquimbo is a port city in Chile and the capital of the Elqui province. The city merges with La Serena to the north and, between the two, they have a combined population of 400,000 people. Charles Darwin visited Coquimbo in May 1835, whilst on his HMS Beagle voyage.

When we disembarked the ship this morning, it was a rather disappointing 20°, however by the time we reached Vicuña, the temperature had risen to around 30°. Our tour today took us to the Elqui Valley, a wine producing region alongside the Elqui River and surrounded by barren, dry mountains at the southern end of the Atacama Desert. It is the most important and successful wine producing region in Chile, as well as being one of the two areas of Pisco production (Pisco being the country’s national drink). Whilst here, we stopped at Pisco Capel, one of the country’s biggest producers of Pisco, and we had a tour of the facility and learned about the production process. After this we drove on to the town of Vicuña, the birthplace of Nobel prize winning poet Gabriella Mistral. As we are both fed up of the scant gluten-free offerings available on Cunard tour lunches, we took ourselves off to a local restaurant where, on our arrival, we were stared at for some minutes by the local punters! It was definitely a ‘Slaughtered Lamb’ moment! 😆

All in all, a pleasant day, with an interesting tour of the Pisco plant, (plus a sample of their wares of course) and a bus ride through some truly stunning scenery.