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Published: October 22nd 2010
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After saying very fond farewells to Jorje and Valparaiso, we got the night bus to La Serena. The bus station was very busy as it was a Bank Holiday in Chile so everyone was also on the move. Could only get the pricey Cama seats (kinda like business class!) so we had a very comfortable journey.
Arrived in cold and grey La Serena very early at 7am on Sunday. Our room at the nice German owned Hostel Del Punto wouldn't be ready until 1pm so we dumped our bags and we out for a walk. Our first impressions of La Serena were not good. The town centre was shut but didn't look great. We walked to the beach front to kill some time but this was horrible, no nice promenade, grey sand, ugly high-rises, stray dogs and an awful crumbling, grafitti ridden lighthouse that was supposed to look like a castle! We're sure that in the summer, when the sun is shining this place looks ok, but today it didn't! We stocked up on supplies at the local supermarket and spent the rest of the day chilling at the hostel and watching trashy (but great) US reality TV!!
Next
day we caught a local bus to the neighboring town of Coquimbo, a port town that reminded us of Valparaiso a bit because of the hills covered with houses. We wandered round the town centre but again all the shops and cafes were closed. Coquimbo's main claim to fame is La Cruz del Tercer Milenio (Cross of the third Millennium), a huge and grotesque raw concrete church and 93m tall tower in the shape of a cross that sits on a hill overlooking the town. We thought this structure could be more ugly than Northampton's infamous Bus Station (voted Britain's most ugly building!). We did go up the cross and the views of the town and coastline were very excellent!
We did a day trip to the nearby lush Elqui Valley, the region famous for growing fruit, vegetables and grapes for making wine and Pisco! We visited loads of places including a papaya, artichoke and cherimoya farm, pretty Vicuna and Pisco Elqui towns, vineyards and the huge Elqui dam. Our favourite stops were at a small Pisco Distillery, where we learnt how the spirit is made (40% distilled wine) and tasted some Pisco. Best drunk in the cocktail, Pisco
Sour! We had lunch at a really cool restaurant where they cook all their food in solar powered hot boxes outside. The solar ovens were really hot! We're not sure what they do on cloudy days though.
Next, on our journey north, we went into the Atacama Desert and stayed in dusty San Pedro de Atacama for a few days. The Atacama Desert is one of the driest places on earth, according to Wikipedia the average rainfall in this area is 1mm per year and we could really feel it. The air was SO dry. Our eyes were constantly scratchy and our noses, mouths and throats were sore and dry. Never experienced anything like it. One good thing was that's Holly's hair was bone straight for once!! No need for GHDs here. One day we hired mountain bikes and headed out into the desert in search of the Valle de la Luna (Moon Valley) and it really did look like a lunar landscape. Grey dusty sand and massive rocks, no plants, animals or insects, not a cloud in the sky nor a noise to be heard. The rocky landscape was really amazing. It was very hot in the exposed
desert so we didn't spend too long on the bikes.
One night we went to the home of eccentric French/Chilean astronomers Alain & Alexandra Maury for a fun and educational evening playing with their telescopes. Atacama is filled with observatories because the skies are so clear all year round. They had many different sized telescopes pointed at some interesting 'Space objects' including- Jupiter plus 4 moons, the Tarantula Nebula, a dazzling star forming region, a dying star, different coloured stars (a blue and an orange one), the Seven Sisters constellation and our moon! There is something quite special about seeing actual Jupiter in real time. The half moon was the most spectacular thing we viewed, wow those telescopes were powerful, we could see every nook and cranny! Alain showed us how to take photos of it with the telescope! Very cool (and cold!) evening finished with a nice cuppa cocoa!
Next on our itinerary was some R&R at the beach and skater town of Iquique but on the way we had a fairly major set back. Sadly, we were targeted by thieves at Calama Bus Station and Holly's rucksack containing our valuables was stolen. A distraction theft rather
than anything more aggravated thank goodness but our passports, Holly's credit cards and iPods were taken. We were absolutely gutted. We were helped by a wonderful local man who lived in Australia so could help us communicate with the police and file a report, as our Spanish lessons hadn't covered emergency vocabulary! Dee's Dad cancelled the cards for us as we were having communication issues (typical, just when you need to call home you can't!). Once the police had been notified, we couldn't do anything else as it was the weekend so got the later bus to Iquique where we chilled out until Monday. Got in touch with the brilliantly kind and helpful British Embassy who told us we'd have to travel back to Santiago to get replacement passports. So back on the bus to retrace our steps, all 907 miles of them. After 28 hours on the bus, we arrived in the capital and spent a few days applying for Emergency Passports and an Argentinian Visa (can't travel to ARG without a proper passport!), which was straightforward and pain free. Annoying and upsetting experience, hope it never happens again. Thank god we bought good travel insurance!
Booked our
flights home in the process. We'll fly home after we travel to Peru, Bolivia and Argentina. Mums, set 2 more places for Christmas dinner.......we'll be home on 23rd December!
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