Qualla: Vicuña

Vicuña: Introduction

Sun, 21 Jun 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit JERRYE AND ROY KLOTZ MD, CC BY-SA 3.0. On 7 April 1889, in a modest house in this small Andean town, a girl named Lucila Godoy Alcayaga was born. The world would come to know her by a name she invented: Gabriela Mistral. Half a century later she became the first Latin American writer to win the Nobel Prize in Literature. Vicuña, the largest town in the Elqui Valley, has never stopped being her town — its plaza of ancient trees still holds sculptures raised in her honor.

Read more: Vicuña on Qualla

Image: JERRYE AND ROY KLOTZ MD | CC BY-SA 3.0

Vicuña: Daughter of the Valley

Sun, 21 Jun 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Raul654, CC BY-SA 3.0. Mistral grew up just up the valley in the village of Montegrande, taught in a one-room school by her older sister Emelina. The poems she would later write — fierce, tender, grief-struck, devoted to children and the dispossessed — carry the dry light and hard hills of this place i...

Read more: Vicuña on Qualla

Image: Raul654 | CC BY-SA 3.0

Vicuña: The Floor of the Valley

Sun, 21 Jun 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Marshallhenrie, CC BY-SA 4.0. Vicuña sits on a green valley floor hemmed by mountains, several of whose peaks climb past 4,000 meters. The plains here grow exceptional grapes, along with other fruits and vegetables, and the great pisco cooperative CAPEL runs its main distillery in the zone. A short way out of...

Read more: Vicuña on Qualla

Image: Marshallhenrie | CC BY-SA 4.0

Vicuña: Three Hundred Clear Nights

Sun, 21 Jun 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Vlguzman, CC BY 3.0. What truly sets Vicuña apart happens after dark. The valley enjoys roughly 300 totally clear nights a year, and the result is a sky so dense with stars it can disorient a first-time visitor. The great professional observatories cluster on the surrounding summits, including Cerro ...

Read more: Vicuña on Qualla

Image: Vlguzman | CC BY 3.0