CasaMolle

CasaMolle is a wellness retreat in Chile’s Elqui Valley that grew out of a family home in the village of El Molle. It is built from the valley’s own materials — adobe, stone, reed and wood — and its paths, low walls and pyramid roofs gather into a small citadel among walnut trees, gardens and dry gardens of stone. The cactus and succulent collection, from desert species to plants of the Andean foothills, is a point of pride, and the botanical garden belongs to the Botanic Gardens Conservation International network. The hotel is a member of Relais & Châteaux and a certified B Corp.

Stays are all-inclusive: every meal from breakfast to dinner, daily yoga and meditation, valley rituals, sound healing, the indoor heated pool and the sauna are part of the rate. An open-air amphitheatre, created with the artist Mireia Gil Jordi and drawing on the Ánima, Molle and Diaguita cultures through ceramics, murals and ancestral symbols, hosts stargazing and ceremonies. A solar plant of 522 panels on the estate supplies all of the hotel’s energy.

Days at CasaMolle revolve around the valley and the sky above it:

• guided hikes on the slopes of Cerro El Molle;
• kayaking on the hotel’s private lagoon;
• bike rides along El Molle’s rural lanes, past orchards and rivers;
• a 9-hole par-3 golf course and mini golf;
• guided stargazing with telescopes on Wednesdays and Fridays in the amphitheatre and Salón Titi, with stories of ancestral cosmology;
• birdwatching in the gardens, hummingbirds included, at dawn and dusk;
• daily yoga and meditation, dawn or sunset rituals and a quartz-and-fire circle for meditating under the stars.

Further afield are Chañaral de Aceituno in the Humboldt Penguin National Reserve, known for whales, dolphins and penguins, diving off Isla Damas, horse riding in the Cochiguaz valley and visits to Viña Alcohuaz for its high-altitude wines.