Los Nichos Pisco Distillery

We made a special effort to get up early today, which wasnt a problem for me as I was freezing cold and hadnt slept properly at all :(( The reason for our rising at 7.30 was that we'd been told about a hike to the top of the mountain behind us that should take about 3 hours to reach the summit and we wanted to leave whilst it was still cool as the heat in the middle of the day is exhausting at over 30 degrees! After an attempted breakfast of poached egg sandwiches (our stove fuel fails to heat water to boiling point) which ended up as egg yolk sandwiches, we went to fill our water bottle to take with us. The problem was that the water, which is filtered and therefore drinkable, had been switched off and as we heard people drinking and singing last night until the early hours we didnt expect anyone to get up any time soon to turn it on! Annoyed at our wasted efforts (there was no thought about going up without water, too dangerous) we decided to make use of the cool morning and explore more of Pisco Elqui. We walked to the end of every road in the village and found that this is a lovely time of day to do so as there is no one about and no traffic, all is peaceful and the only noise is the birds in the trees, lovely :)) As we were walking back along a road we noticed one of the tourist offices was open and went in to ask about a couple of things we'd read about in the guide book but that no one at the campsite had been able to tell us about. Armed with information we went back to the campsite at about 10 just as people were starting to stir and finally got some water, then feeling a bit tired and with nothing to do for a few hours we had a nap in the now pleasantly warm tent. We woke up at about 12.30 and headed off on a 4-5km walk into the next village along called Los Nichos where a small mention in the guide book had prompted us to find out about the pisco distillery there. We arrived just as a tour was ending and so sat in the shade around a pretty little courtyard full of old distillery equipment for nearly an hour when the next one began. The tour was in Spanish and had about 15 people on it as well as ourselves, the guide had possibly been told that we were English as he began by speaking very slowly and clearly so that between us we were able to understand about 85% of what he was saying. Unfortunately by the end he had forgotten and had relapsed into Chilean spanish of which we struggled to understand 15%!! Luckily this was only for the last bit in a cellar where we think lots of famous people had comet to drink, party and sample the wines and pisco produced here...but we're not sure! The tour in itself was interesting and set in a beautiful area amidst the vineyards and old buildings, this is in fact the oldest Pisco Distillery in the whole of Chile and used to be called Tres Erres or the 3 R's after the names of the founders (possibly related) Rodriguez, Rodriguez and Roberto. The name has since been changed when the company was sold in 1996 to Los Nichos after the village, they have also opened a larger more commercial site in Pisco Elqui which we could have gone to instead, but the price for the tour there is $10 whereas this one is $2! The best part as with any tour was the tasting at the end where we got to try 2 different Pisco's, a 35% and a 40% and also their 'waste product' Vino Nectar which is sweet like a dessert wine, fairly similar to madeira and absolutely delicious! At only $7 for a bottle we had to have one and to our surprise and delight it turns out that if you buy something at the end then the tour is free..so really the bottle only cost us $3 :) Very pleased with our purchase we made our way back to the campsite and as it was still so hot decided to take a dip in the pool that has been formed in part of the river that flows through it. The water was freezing cold and Andy laughed as I forced myself to quickly swim around him before wanting to get out and dry in the sun. We had had the forethought to bring the bottle of Vino Nectar with us and cool it in the river during our swim so subsequently by the time we were dry it was beautifully chilled ready to have with our dinner of rice, tomatoes and the sweetest avocados you've ever tasted. We spent the remainder of the evening enjoying our nectar and looking at the strange stars that shone so brightly in the super clear sky before heading to bed.