Oh man, had the best fucking weekend. I skipped town Friday afternoon, taking a 7 hour bus ride north to an old, old city on the ocean called La Serena, had a quick nights sleep, then headed our early Saturday morning up through the Elqui Valley, the valley in northern Chile home to both the sugary grapes that make Chilean Pisco, the powerful grape brandy, and Gabriela Mistral, one of the two Chilean poets who won the Nobel Prize for Literature. She won it way back in 46, died 10 years later, and a lot of her life is preserved up in Monte Grande one of the highest town in the valley. I saw the house where she lived that`s adjoined to the school where she taught for many years, plus her sepulchre up on the hill. She was really big on education, traveling to Mexico to help reform their education system and worked as an ambassador as well. All in all a really amazing lady and way different from the fun lovin`commie Pablo Neruda, the other Chilean Nobel laureate. I took the bus to the town highest up in the valley called Pisco Elqui, it`s really beautiful and preserved really well. It sits on the hill between two high mountains just above the valley floor which is covered in grape vines for as far as the eye can see. I really love the small town charm, it`s the same feeling I get when I`m in Nevada City. What`s also rad about Pisco Elqui is that 40 years ago the named was changed from whatever is was before to Pisco Elqui because somehow this gave Chile the exclusive right to sell the drink under the name Pisco. Apparently there`s a debate over where the drink was first invented, either Peru or Chile. I was talking to a bartender about this on Saturday night and he told me that the Incas invented it using grapes brought over from Spain, and I`m gonna avoid altogether the inevitable drunken indian joke. I guessed that since the Incas were more populous in the areas today known as Peru that it must have been invented in Peru, and he grudgingly agreed. Then I asked him what would happen if Peru started using the word Pisco, thus violating Chile`s exclusive right to the name. His answer: "Probably some international tribunal would make a decision on it..." "Over a type of booze?" and at that he could explain no more. I could just see the fiery debate at the union of latin american nations meetings, people threatening each other with pesticides to destroy the crops and all the century old rivalries between Argentina, Chile, Peru, and Bolivia coming to ahead before the union head yells, "Stop Everything! Aren`t we supposed to be arguing about soccer?" and at that chaos abrubtly stops.
Anyway, it was a great couple days of reading, writing, speaking Spanish, hiking, and relaxing. Solo weekend trips are great, I gotta keep up on them. And speaking of solo trips, I think I`m gonna skip town Friday afternoon and get on the day long bus heading for La Paz, Bolivia`s capital city that sits up in the Andes at over 4000 meters. After a couple days getting adjusted to the lack of oxygen and perusing the witch market in La Paz, it`s off on a rented mountain bike down the 70 km downhill road to Coroico, otherwise known as The Most Dangerous Road In The World. Yea, take that. It`s been fun telling my professors that I`m not going to school next week, it`s so rad how supportive they are. "Hey, I`m not coming to school next week. I`m going to Bolivia. That one week off in March just isn`t enough, and I`m heading south that week anyway." And they all say "Wow, that`s really smart, vale la pena (take advantage of it)." Damn straight. Travelin`Steve`s a travelin`man, don`t get in the way of his travelin`plans.
On a sad note, my beloved cheap ass sandals that I`ve had for two years finally self destructed when I was hiking in the hills above Pisco Elqui on Saturday, may they rest in peace. I`m gonna see if I can`t get some of those sandals with soles made out of old tires, cross your fingers. It sounds like Dan had a rad time diving and a happy 24th, hopefully he`s got enough flow to make it down to Nicaragua and kick it in Granada and Ometepe Island. Much love to the homies, keep protesting the fuck out of that shite ass war.