Blogs from La Serena, Coquimbo Region, Chile, South America

After I had left Herb & Ron I headed back into Copiapo, to the main plaza, Plaza Prat. I had decided I couldn't be bothered to ride up the Rio Copiapo valley to see some grapes. I would rather look round the museum. I pulled up in the space reserved for "motos" that Herb & I caught up with Ron earlier that morning. The museum was a short walk round the corner but it was closed. I wasn't too surprosed as it was nearly 3 pm and everywhere was still shut. The sign on the gate seemed to suggested it opened again at 3.30 so I headed back to the square. Opposite the bike was a pleasant little cafe that had out door seating and was open. I took Ron's advice. The best place is where ... read more

La Serena is one of Chile’s oldest cities, founded in 1544.It was the main staging post on the route north to Peru; many of the religious orders built churches and convents here providing accommodation for their members, and the city still has 29 churches. Some people went to Coquimbo to see the big cross, the Cruz del Tercer Milenio (Spanish for "Third Millennium Cross"). It is 83m tall and 40m wide and you can see it from La Serena. Some of us decided to walk to the beach where the lighthouse is. On the way there we walked by Parque Pedro de Valdivia where there was small zoo / aviary with llama, alpaca, some domestic fowl (chicken, ducks, geese), parrots, emu and ostrich. There was also a rink where some kids were playing roller hockey which ... read more

Miercoles 17th Agosto 2011 (Wednesday 17th August 2011) We wake up to a wonderful early breakfast (desayuno) from Olivier to see us off from Valpo to Mendoza. He even drives us to the station! The bad news hits us straight up when we arrive at Terminal de Buses. The bus has been cancelled due to bad weather over The Andes. We get the tickets changed for the following day and go about finding somewhere to stay. This is where the fun begins. A little lady at the terminal says she has a guest house we can stay at, so we follow her and soon arrive at the house which is quite close to the bus terminal. We accept the room which Sharls has already named ‘Dogsville’ with shared baños (toilets) and kitchen. Sharls starts to ... read more

Serene La Serena Serenity is all relative; I'd arrived in La Serena on a hot, crowded overnight bus from the wonderful, wild, colorful madness of larger Valparaiso, and indeed, La Serena seemed a serene dream of a city. Yet I'd soon enjoy true peace (though some rowdies would say rigor mortis) in the little pueblo of Vicuna. It's all relative. La Serena, with its population of 160,000 was perfect in many ways--busy, but not mad like Valpo, yet big enough to have a municipal theater (where I saw a wonderful evening of operatic love arias and duets), a cinema (which unfortunately only showed American action films), several museums, a charming Japanese garden, beaches that swell the population to double its size in the summer, lots of shopping for those inclined, a camera-repair shop for me, and ... read more

At La Serena I visited the 'tourist observatory' up in the mountains near the town. Here we passed over our cameras and they photographed the moon (see first photograph) and saturn (see second photograph) for us through two of their telescopes (see third and forth photographs). This was definitely a highlight of the trip. La Serena also has an interesting archaelogy museum where the star exhibit is a statue (or moai) from Easter Island (see last photograph). The splendid housing of the statue was paid for from an insurance claim when the statue was temporarily decapitated whilst on loan to Barcelona. For any of my readers that may be tempted to submit a similar claim please bear in mind that human head re-grafting is still at an experimental stage. En La Serena, visité el "observatorio turístico" ... read more