Instant karma: Chile's Elqui Valley, once home to hippies and stargazers, welcomes the higher-end traveler.

Known for its semi-arid beauty, Chile's Elqui Valley has long been a haven for hippie backpackers. Free spirits have flocked here to meditate and take in the good karma in this valley, which claims to be diametrically located on the opposite side of the planet from Lhasa in Tibet, the center of the Buddhist world.

Today good karma comes with a little luxury, as Santiago's workaholics and foreign tourists are showing up in greater numbers looking for spiritual enlightenment. The number of overnight guests in the valley climbed to 8,395 during the 2003-2004 summer season from 2,385 during the 1992-1993 summer, according to Sernatur, the national tourism board.

Tourists come for the valley's 300-plus days of sunny skies, low humidity and clean air, the same things that drew international space observatories in nearby Cerro Tololo and Cerro Morado to the region. To capitalize on visitors' interest in these privately owned observatories, Eduardo Valenzuela persuaded the Vicuna municipality and other local governments to invest US$470,000 to help him develop Mamalluca, an amateur observatory, which has welcomed 180,000 visitors since 1999. Some 40,000 people a year--28% of them foreigners-pay $7 each for a chance to see sights such as Saturn's rings and moons. "The best discovery is that we live on a small planet and each person discovers a new perspective," Valenzuela says.

Clear skies have not only been good to the region's astronomers, not to mention plenty of grape and papaya farmers, but also to the Solar Restaurant, owned by Marta Rojas and her partners at the end of a dusty road in Villa Seca, a small valley town.

True to the name, sunlight powers the business. Lined up on a terrace behind a flowerbed are dozens of solar panels with reflector wings spread wide to capture the sun's rays and heat up to 180 degrees Celsius. That's hot enough to feed ovens that slowly roast goat meat bought from the nomadic Majada Indians, who live in the high mountain pastures. They also cook up native Chilean dishes like cazuela stew, pastel de choclo, a sweet corn pie, and gooey desserts like tres leches.

The restaurant is more than just a novelty. It is a growing business serving $6 lunches to up to 120 people a day in the high season--that's 12 goats a week. Solar cooking as a business has meant an escape from poverty for its owners.

The restaurant was born in 2000, growing out of a failed government project to ease poverty by providing cooking facilities that don't rely on expensive fuel. Most of the original recipients of the ovens never learned how to use them and tossed them out. But Rojas and partners salvaged them and formed a business. "Everyone said we were crazy, but it has changed our lives," Rojas says.

Many businesses in the valley such as the restaurant are benefiting from the efforts of former regional tourism authority director Esteban Zarate, who has convinced valley entrepreneurs to participate in seamless billing programs. "The concept is one bill for everything. I can organize car rentals, accommodations in La Serena and visits in the Valley and the tourist just pays one bill," Zarate says.

Zarate sees this as an essential part of developing his own business, the Elqui Domos, billed as an astronomical hotel, which aims to provide quality accommodations for foreign and wealthy Chilean visitors but without the luxury price tag.

Domes or no domes, some just want to relax. "The Dali Lama said that Elqui has magic," says Antonio Bereneguer, owner of the Alma Zen hotel. "Elqui is a channel for energy that helps to integrate the spirit and the body."

The nine-year-old Alma Zen offers tarot readings, aura cleansing and chua ka, a Mongolian massage therapy said to rid the body of negative energies. Its main attraction is a crystal-clear swimming pool.

For now, Spa Cochiguaz is the newest development, just a year old. It is still working to complete a hydro-massage pool. "For me it is magic and very healthy," says hotel manager Florencia Rubina, a practitioner of reiki, a hands-on healing art form. "We try to help people so they get what they come here for, their internal physical health," says Rubina. "The place is incredible," says Carolina Hernandez, visiting from Santiago with her boyfriend Rodrigo to find some rest and relaxation. "I had an herbal bath with oils and minerals and Rodrigo had a massage with aromatic natural oils that was very, very good." Good spirits. Happy travelers aren't the only good spirits around. Cavas del Elqui, just north of the valley, is a vineyard and the retirement project of owners Marlies Duerr and Raymundo Piraces.

The pair produced their first bottles in October 2004 on an investment of $336,000, excluding land costs, and started welcoming visitors this year. The vineyard produces 11,000 bottles of Syrah a year and 5,000 bottles of Muscat, a dessert wine.

"We produce Syrah because we have the same climatic conditions here as they have in Iran where the syrah grape originated," Duerr says.

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PAUL HARRIS * VALLE DEL ELQUI