"That afternoon while looking at some postcards in a shop in La Serena, I noticed one showing a large church up in the mountains. On enquiring about the place I was shown on my map a town called Andacollo, that was about 40 miles away. Next morning I decided to have another night at the hotel and take a local bus to see the place. Despite being only about 40 miles on the map, the town was about 6,000' up the mountains and took nearly 3 hours to reach, though it was an interesting ride past old copper mines and climaxing with a steep climb over a high pass.
 
Andacollo was an old mining town dominated by this enormous church built on the site of an acclaimed miracle. The church, that must have been one of the largest in the world to be completely built of wood, looked way out of place in this impoverished looking little town, surrounded as it was by barren hills. I could not help feeling that the people that built it had somehow got their priorities wrong. From an artist's point of view I could not have wished for a more engaging subject, and I had a job deciding which of the many interesting views I should choose to paint, given the few hours I had before the bus returned  at 3pm. 
 
The smaller original church shown in the painting above, was in itself quite a substantial building, and I felt was far more in-keeping with its surroundings.
 
Following what had been an enjoyable day excursion up to Andacollo, it was back on the road to head north again. I caught an early morning bus to Copiapó where I planned to stop, but after a short walk around the town I found there was little of interest for me, so decided to continue on a bus to Caldera. It was interesting to note the area round Copiapó was the only place in Chile where I saw a vineyard, surprising I thought for a country that is one of the world's largest wine producers." - MH