La Serena, Chile

Typical street scene in La Serena, old section of town (walk to the beach from there is about 30 mins)
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Its been so long since I´ve had the opportunity to sit down at a computer, I´ve almost forgotten about La Serena! Not really, but let me first begin with the last night in Santiago. We were recommended by our guide to go to this revolving restaurant which towers above the city on about the 20th floor. The restaurant floor moves very slowly and the 360 degree nightscape was truly amazing! There was also a pianist playing classical music on a grand piano, which added to the very swanky atmosphere. The food was also wonderful, which is something I have come to expect in Chile, about the quality I mean. I ordered grilled trout and salad and four of us shared about two bottles of local wine, which was also fantastic. I never have dessert, but a few of the group did, and all of them were presented in the most creative ways, for example, with 20cm high praline mesh things all over it. Quite spectacular really! Anyway after that most of the group trotted home to bed, but a few of us stayed out to party.

Hmmm ... First we went to a club where there was happy hour, and of course when in Chile, you must have a pisco sour. But happy hour of course meant two for one. Four later, and we were well and truly on our way towards a hugamungo night! Now pisco is the "national" drink of Chile, and the best way I can explain it is that its a little better than grappa. Its made in much the same way as wine, but left a little longer in huge vats so it gets a little more potent. Alcohol content ranges from about 35% to 55%, and higher in the case of moonshine. The higher percentage, the better quality it seems. AAaaanyway....a pisco sour is made with about half pisco and half lemon juice, with a teaspoon of sugar over ice. In some areas of Chile they also add egg white. They are very refreshing and understandably very morish!! At the nightclub we started chatting to some locals who then invited about four of us back to a private party at a penthouse suite nearby. And what an experience that was! The apartment was simply amazing, brimming with original contemporary art, and a very sophisticated decor. Strangely it seems that somehow we had found our way into a Santiago "A" list party.  There were diplomats, business people, artists, fashionistas, most of whom spoke perfect English. But I´m not going to say exactly what happened there, because this is a public blog, and some people may get into trouble.... hahaha!  Suffice to say we arrived home at 10:15 the next day, 15 minutes to spare before our bus departed for La Serena!!

La Serena, Chile´s little bit of Mediterranean

The bus journey from Santiago to La Serena took about eight hours from memory, but fortunately for once I was able to sleep most of the way, given the night before! La Serena has about 150,000 inhabitants and is Chile's second oldest city. Its about 470km north of Santiago and was founded sometime in the mid 1500´s. Its a pretty colonial city that sprawls around a large bay flanked by white sandy beaches. The colonial architecture is found around the Plaza de Armas which is in the older part of the city further up the hill. However for some reason the buildings by the seaside are much more modern, and of course geared to the beach-seeking tourist. It has an almost "Gold Coast" feel about it along the beach front, but I have to say, the beaches are not quite as good as they are there. There´s the usual crop of resort hotels - Hilton´s, Sheratons etc, so I think the older buildings must have made way to create a mecca for beach-lovers.

La Serena has the usual cathedrals, but because the Pope visited the city about 15 years or so ago, they are quite grandiose. The architecture around the main part of town is typical colonial, and the streets are very pedestrian friendly, with these big bump things dotted along the footpath, instead of having a curb (see the pics). Some of the roads in the older part of town are quite narrow and the shops are really interesting. For example, one little shop had chooks lined up in laying boxes, where you could buy fresh eggs! I just found that kinda weird to see that next door to a pharmacy.

Unfortunately our digs for the two days we were in La Serena weren´t the best, and my room mate even complained of bedbugs! EEEK!! Thankfully I didn´t succumb to them, but just talking about them makes you itch, doesn´t it!! The rooms were small and quite stuffy and you could smell damp. I think maybe that place gave me a bit of a cold, which I´m still trying to shake. Breakfast was provided for the two days we were there, but it was quite meagre, probably the worst so far. It consisted of one piece of bread, one water cracker, a tea bag or sachet of instant coffee, and milk that they poured out. I think that´s about it. Most of the goup had already sussed this tho, and went to the local supermarket the day before. So we were able to share a few things amongst us, despite the rationing by the surly owner.

Anyway shonky accommodation means you´re only there to sleep, right? So the first night we went to the space observatory for some star-gazing. We were picked up around 7:00 and didn´t arrive home until about 1:00am. It was about an hour´s drive from the city, and once there we were joined by about four other tour buses, so it was all pretty crowded. It seems that northern Chile is setting itself up as the cosmos centre of the universe because of its clean air and close proximity (on account of the altitude) to the heavens. All the nearby towns have exchanged flourescent lighting for sulphur or xenon lights to reduce the amount of white light and interference. I think the guide even mentioned that there´s some international conglomerate investing something like $10 billion in this huge telescope, which is going to be constructed about 50km away. From memory I think he said it will be about 20 metres in diameter. Anyway we got the opportunity to view the stars and main constellations (including the Southern Cross!) through a pretty kick-ass telescope. I even have a pic of the moon which he took with my camera!

The next day we headed to the Elqui valley for a tour of the dam on the Elqui River, a pisco distillery, and generally just taking in the scenery. The very dry and barren landscape around La Serena is broken by this quite small but lush valley to the north of the city. The dam was constructed about 20 or so years ago and now enables quite a range of agriculture which wouln´t have been possible before then. By far the most popular product is grapes for making pisco, but I also saw corn and citrus trees. The grapes are grown all up the hillsides, so far up that I have no idea how they´d even harvest them. Anyway they must manage somehow because when we went to the pisco distillery after lunch it was in the process of boiling up a huge amount of grapes harvested over the previous few days. We sampled some of the pisco made at the distillery, and I learned that there´s pisco, and there´s pisco. Just like there´s wine and there´s wine I suppose. One of them we tried was a very dark colour and tasted very similar to brandy. I think it had been aged about 10 years, but usually pisco has a pretty quick turnover, and the cheaper stuff is only in the vats for about three months, hence its lighter colour. Anyway it was a really enjoyable day and a chance to escape the awful room I guess.

However the end of the day wasn´t to be a relaxing one, because we had to catch the nightbus at 9:00pm for San Pedro de Atacama.  Ohh how I dislike nightbuses! But there is some small consolation about bus travel, even on a night bus. When the nights give way to the mornings it does provide an opportunity to see the countryside and how people live and work and go about their daily lives. This to me is very important, and I wouldn´t miss it for the world. Its worth the stiff knees and aching back to witness these things, and they´re etched into my memory forever. I think I have mentioned in an earlier entry that some people have their noses stuck in books the entire way and rarely look out the window! I just don´t understand that. Anyway after 22 hours stuck in a bus, Atacama Desert here we come!!