The Elqui Valley is home to a mountain basin, located in the Region of Coquimbo, about 90 km from La Serena and 470 km north of Santiago, whose river (Elqui river) flows into the sea after traveling 140 km from the Andes mountains. Major tributaries of the Elqui River are the Claro and Turbio rivers.
This valley is located one of the many dams that owns the region, the reservoir Puclaro, which is 432 meters in an area known as Angostura Puclaro. Has a capacity of 200 million cubic meters of water and 760 hectare.
The Elqui Valley receives its water resources and long periods of sunshine throughout the year, both excellent for the production of fruits, vegetables, and especially the cultivation of grapes for export and for local pisco production.Its skies are one of the clearest in the southern hemisphere, which is why international organizations have established astronomical observatories in the summits of Tololo and Pachón Hills.
It is one of the most visited places in the North of Chile, and is considered a power pole and associated with the UFO phenomena by communities that realice differents esoteric activities in this area.
The valley is located Vicuña, the main city and birthplace of the Chilean poet Gabriela Mistral, Nobel Prize winner for Literature in 1945 and the National Prize for Literature in 1951.
It has tourist attractions such as the Gabriela Mistral Museum, the Mamalluca Observatory Center, the vineyard “Cavas del Valle”, considered the highest in Chile, the Cerro Tololo Observatory, Villaseca’s sunny cookers and important Pisco producing in the world. At the top of the valley, few people seeded grape that match the lower part of the Elqui Valley, where low cross watercourses which serve as the evacuation of Andean ice.
