BACK TO THE CONTINENT: SOUTH AND NORTH OF SANTIAGO

MORE PICTURES TO COME
After the isolation we felt in Rapa Nui, it was time for us to go back to our western civilization and celebrate with the Chileans their independence day (18th of Septembre) in a tiny but cute village in the south of Santiago. There we enjoyed the latin way of life.... which involves mainly: eating a lot, riding horses, talking all night long and drinking drinking drinking...
We also had the great luxury to attend the famous 18th of Septembre PARADE that lasted a little more than 3 hours (for a pueblo of less then 300 people).... as everyone of the village who had something to show (a horse, a dog, a kid, a truck, whatever...) participated to this joyful celebration!
Quite an experience to see a priest dance with a prostitute, a man fall from his horse because he was too drunk or a man cooking food on top of the oldest truck one has seen still moving...


After enjoying the songs and screams of drunk Chileans for two full days, we decided it was time to go back to find some peace and left for la Serena, enjoying once again the beautiful Chilean coast.
We found in la Serena a beautiful colonial city leading us right to another quebrada (I had missed them greatly since Salta...), the Quebrada D'Elki.
There we enjoyed not only the beauties of the high lakes, multicolored mountains, and their famous "vibe" (this place is crowded by seekers of UFOs and cosmic energies...) but also the green valleys formed by millions of hectares of vinyards necessary for the production of Pisco (the Chilean drink - 50 million tons of pisco are produced by Chile each year...). Now we are talking!


Bacchus should have come...

It was unfortunately time for my mom to go back to France and for me to take yet another 23h bus to meet my very good friend Alexander in San Pedro de Atacama (Chile).
The aventure continues....