The Serenity of La Serena

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Wow a lot to say as a lot has been done.

Firstly, let me mention that photos will be coming as soon as we find a place that actually has DSL or Cable, as it´s basically impossible to upload our (fantastic) photos on a 56K modem, which is all that is available where we are.

Anyway back to last week...

Monday: We arrived in La Serena after a 7-hour bus trip which was, put simply, boring. We got into La Serena without any hostel bookings, as we´d found there were heaps of people waiting around at Valpo bus terminal for tourists to recruit to their hostels. Sure enough we arrived to about 5 people all crowding around us, insisting we stay at their hostel. In the end there were 2 competitors, a guy who spoke English in an LA cap, and a woman who had prepared a ´portfolio´ of her hostel, with photos and a list of facilities (including HOT WATER). I should add that the guy in the LA cap when he found out we were from Australia, ran off (very rapidly) a list of all the major Australian cities... kinda freaky, needless to say.

Overwhelmed by their advances, we sat down to eat, and Jason noticed that the woman was still hovering around outside the café entrance. In the end we decided that if she´d take 1000 pesos (AU$2.50) less each per night, then we´d go to hers. Sure enough, the moment I said (in Spanish, of course) : "My boyfriend wants to pay 4000 pesos per night" she almost shouted "Sí!" straight away. Obviously she was desperate for people, and I started thinking we should have started with a lower price.

She drove us to her hostel, Hostel Gladys (her name... it was one of the things that put me off actually). We get there and it had turned out we´d made the right choice. In the middle of (or very close to) everything, clean, internet facilities, hot showers, and a really nice room painted in my favourite colour (purple!) and with cupboards, a table and Cable TV. The small plaza and park outside the hostel was, as are most parks in Chile, filled to the brim with teenage couples making out.

That being said, La Serena is one of my favourite towns thus far. Quiet but not isolated, Safe but not a tourist trap, and clean but not sterile, the town is a lovely getaway where you don´t have to worry about looking like a tourist but also don´t need to worry about being stuck in a town ONLY with other tourists (like the next city you´ll read about).

After settling in, we headed to the supermarket to stock up on goods. I should mention here a small fact about Chilean supermarkets. In the vegetable section and the bread section, theres a little stall where staff weigh what you´ve picked up and put a price on it, similar to how to Deli sections work in Australia. If you get to the checkout having not pre-weighed your vegetables, fruit, or bread, you either go back and get it done or leave it behind. We later discovered that we had inadvertedly bought liquor-flavoured (or should I say tainted?) Vienetta, which WAS going to be our splurge item for La Serena but ended up just being a tragedy.

We went to bed annoyed at the lack of delicious icecream, but satisfied by our otherwise-pleasant dinner.

Tuesday: Ok. I´m very excited. Because Tuesday morning something happened which I´d been waiting for ever since arriving in Chile : I got to eat Bacon and eggs. OH! The joy! Having a bacon and egg delicacy on delicious La Serena bread was just.. ah.. indescribably delicious and great, just great.

Anyway.. after breakfast Jason and I decided to see all the typical touristy stuff in the area like the museums and parks, etc. We saw:

- Iglesias (churches) : Catedral (big, catholic building with great architecture), Santo Domingo (a smaller church right next to our hostel), and San Francisco (a church next to a school which had bars all around it so really didn´t look all that inviting).

- Museo Arqueológico : The archaeological museum full of info about the indigenous history in the area. Also with a display of two shrunken heads - COOL!

- A big parkland area which, it turned out, houses animals (with no entrance fee!). Animals such as peacocks, ducks, rabbits, and condors. Yes, condors. With farm animals. What the connection is I just don´t know.

We then headed to the giant supermarket complex, the entrance to which was a big white hallway filled with calming live harp playing. As I said to Jason, it felt like a stereotypical entrance to heaven, which I guess is what the supermarket owners want it to feel like. The Lider (a supermarket chain) inside was HUGE, bigger than any Australian supermarket I´ve ever seen. After perusing it´s aisles to no avail, Jason decided to buy a Churro, and we were smart enough to get a photo of it this time. Deeeeelicious! While he was eating it, we noticed that the radio station they were playing on loudspeaker in the complex was playing.. the Neverending Story themesong? Ayayay.

I should mention that in between seeing churches, we made eye contact with a random dog that decided to start following us. Freaked out, we crossed the street maybe 5 times before losing it. In retrospect, I think it just wanted some company. But nevertheless the number of stray dogs you see does make you a bit suspicious of them.

We also booked a tour that day, to go to Islas Damas. I was determined to go out of the numerous brochures boasting Penguins.. and I luuuuurve penguins. So we booked that (at about AU$60 each, out of my extra spending money) and after tossing off our shoes in the hostel and grabbing our "games bag" we went and sat in the beautiful Plaza de Armas. We started playing the Monopoly card game, but after a while two interesting women approached us. "We Gypsy" they said to us. And they looked it. Long skirts, dark curly hair, straggly appearances, they really were genuine Latin American gypsies. After a while of pretending not to understand Spanish, one of them started grabbing at Jason´s pocket where the bulge of his wallet was showing. When he affronted them, she walked off huffed saying in Spanish "Ah! I hate you!"

Shaken, but not stirred, we returned to the hostel for a good night´s dinner and rest.

Wednesday: We´d discovered the day before that there were a few things in La Serena that we hadn´t had a chance to see but which were apparent "must-sees".

The first was a Japanese Garden, located right next to the giant park with all the animals. We took a heap of pictures as it really was very beautiful but not, in what I´ve seen of Japanese Gardens, very Japanesey. And, as with every garden, there was a couple making out right in the centre. Nevertheless it was a nice little getaway and was a pleasant stroll.

After getting a lot of wrong directions (or at least my interpretation was wrong), we headed toward the ocean and the apparently infamous Faro (lighthouse) of La Serena. The beach had a huge sign up saying that we couldn´t swim, and we later discovered it´s because the sewerage is pumped straight out into the ocean. Disappointed, Jason spotted horses and asked if I fancied a horse ride. For AU$7.50 each we got a ride along the ocean, accompanied by the owners´ son, who I guessed to be at about 12 years old. When we started off, he kept staring at me, which was a bit strange. But then when he started helping to ´adjust´the straps which were coming loose, he started "brushing" past my breasts and bottom, after which point I decided I would adjust my own straps. His hands got slapped away only once more after that, and I think he got the message.. I should say as revenge though, I only gave in 75c as a tip, which is probably more insulting than pretending I didn´t know he should get a tip. If he wasn´t so young (and I´m guessing he didn´t go to school which probably made him even more young) then I wouldn´t have paid his father anything either. Nevertheless it was a small glitch in an otherwise hilarious experience: though not for Jason, as not only did his stomach hurt when his horse gallopped, but his horse also kept trying to turn around and go back. Naturally, this was side-splitting for me, and side-splitting in a less positive sense for Jason. As Jason said, his horse was completely "retarded".

After a quick and cheap taxi ride back to the giant supermarket, we grabbed some extra food, and I discovered an as-yet-untapped cheap food resource: the dehyrated soups. for about 50c a packet, I could get half a meal in soup form. And we´re talking really big packets which make about a litre of soup. I call this my "soup economy" idea.

We got back to town and dropped off our food, deciding to find a vegetarian restaurant listed in my guide book. Unfortunately, after much searching and despairing (on Jason´s behalf), we couldn´t find it, and came to the conclusion that it must have shut down in the two years between the book´s release and our travel to the area. We went toward the supermarket, deciding to find another restaurant instead. On our way, a man in a tuxedo approached us. Thinking he was yet another hostellier trying to convince us to go to his hostel, I was pleased to see he was actually from a restaurant trying to recruit customers.

He started following us and we said we´d think about it. When we got to the restaurant area (after briefly buying Jason some goggles), we went up the escalators and found literally (and I mean literally) 7 people all in tuxedos all harrassing us to come to their restaurants. They were following us around and all trying to shout over the top of each other. Overwhelmed, we ran. We actually ran. We found a restaurant where nobody was trying to recruit us, sat down, and ate. We had a fish dish covered in Shrimp sauce. I preferred the fish, Jason preferred the sauce. Yes, that´s right, Jason´s eating fish now. My guess is more out of necessity than desire, as the options for vegetarians here are slim to none. In the end, for a large delicous fish dish for two, chips, salad, a beer and a soda, we paid AU$25. Not bad really.

Jason and I also realised at that point that we´d never had a sit-down meal at a restaurant together, just the two of us. Never. Strange but true. It was a nice experience, despite the view from the balcony being that of a taxi rank.

We also took Wednesday to visit the Museum Gabriel Gonzalez Videla, an old Chilean President from La Serena who had kicked our famous poet Pablo Neruda out of government. It was one of his old houses and filled with stuff from his time, including the clothes he wore to parliament.

Back at the hostel, Jason taught me the chords D, A, A minor, B, G, and C on guitar, and we decided that after dinner we would have "sit-up games", whereby the loser of any given game must do more sit-ups than the winner. This is in order to be consistent with our joint aim of improved fitness. I should mention there was a big controversy over a game called Battlemasters, which ahd the most sit-ups at stake, because horses can´t go in the tower because they cant climb the stairs, yet Jason´s ogre (clearly a beast far too large for such a small tower) was allowed in to kill my crossbowmen.

....Errr... anyway... After fulfilling our sit-up requirements we packed everything up, ready to leave at 8am the next day for our Penguin tour.

Thursday: Our last day in La Serena, and also the day of our tour of Islas Damas, or "Penguin Island" : which is not a translation just what I like calling it. We got driven to a small town up the coast, the drive taking about 2-3 hours in itself. After almost foretting the camera, we got on the boat and headed to the island, with Jason getting even more motion sickness (wherever there is a bus, or plane, or train, or boat: his motion sickness will be there). We got to see a whole bunch of Sea-Lions and Penguins (YAY!) as well as Cormorans and lots of other birdies. See the photos (once you can) for an awesome summary of what we saw.

We had snacks on a smaller island nearby, where we had some tea and got a close-up look at some awesome cactii. When the guide found out about Jason´s motion sickness, he insisted Jason stand at the front of the boat holding onto a rope for balance. Sure enough, once this was done, Jason was no longer motion-sick (tada!) and I got to get to know the guide a whole lot better as he discussed his relationship woes.

APPARENTLY, he and his girlfriend of two years live in different cities and when they´re together they always fight, but once they´re apart they fall back in love over the phone and can´t wait to see each other. Combine this with his indecision about whether to buy a cake and then take it to her for her birthday, or whether to get there and THEN buy a cake, and you could tell this relationship was going a little crazy!

We had another fishy lunch at a restaurant covered by the cost of the tour, where the German couple we were with were debating with the guide about how different (or not) other countries of latin america were in comparison to Chile. Also, after lunch, a couple who had ived in Australia asked where we were from and were thrilled to hear we were from Sydney. It was really strange because the town in question has a population of about 300 people, so to find two from Sydney was strange to say the least.

I found out a whole bunch of facts about all that we saw which I wrote down but won´t bore you with on here.

Anyway, we drove back to La Serena with an hour to kill before our 16-hour trip to San Pedro de Atacama commenced. We´d gotten the last two seats and decided to fork out about AU$50 extra to get the buses with the more bed-like seats. A decision we certainly do not regret, as it allowed us to actually get some rest on this giant trip. By Friday at 11:30am, we were here in San Pedro de Atacama, 2300m above sealevel, yet again being accosted by hostel owners.

Photos now added! Please click on the See More Photos button as there are heaps more, especially of some of the animals we saw and a few other random tidbits :)