We love Chile!
This was our second time visiting Chile, and we had a very good Chilean friend — Alfredo and his wife Katia — who helped us book an apartment in La Serena. Alfredo has since passed away, in 2022. We flew into Santiago and rented a car for a leisurely drive up the coast — wide, well maintained, minimal traffic but with tolls (how else would it be so well maintained!).
We hadn’t found a viewing site yet and spent a few days in Vicuña scouting around. Finally we located a local tour operator who had procured a site at a farm with a big open field and an unobstructed view, in Complejo Alto Palermo, Peralillo — for a fee that included transport from La Serena, breakfast, and an amazing BBQ lunch with a whole roasted pig on a turning spit! They also had chickens and dogs running around for us to observe their reactions to the eclipse. A real carnival-like setup, with short talks by different experts. The eclipse viewing was perfect — no clouds, no unexpected problems.
The Chileans are very friendly, helpful and generous — even the police who stopped us along the mountain road, checking our car rental documents. We had fantastic meals: shrimp empanada at Mar Adentro, and Pastel de Jaiba at Magnolia Restaurant in Coquimbo.
We stayed on after the eclipse and went deeper into the Coquimbo valley to Elqui Domos for dark-sky stargazing. We stayed in one of the geodesic domes with an open rooftop for viewing the night sky lying in bed. They even had a little observatory up the hill, and it was so dark that we could take a selfie with the Milky Way behind us.
