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Published: March 29th 2006
This is combined entry because we spent so little time in each place!
Last time we wrote we were in Lima, staying at a lovely hostel with an almost
too friendly hostel owner who was saving to go travelling and lived with his mum who had a Miss Haversham room.
We then spent a day travelling to Iquique. This involved:
- a flight from Lima to Tacna, via Arequipa
- a colectivo (taxi that fills up with 5 people before it goes, we were his first 2 passengers so we had to wait about an hour for him to find 3 more!) to Arica just across the border
- a bus to Iquique that was delayed so didn't arrive until 2.30am
- a moonlight taxi to our hostel
Our hostel was lovely - it was a Georgian type house on a pedestrianised street full of palm trees that looked like giant pineapples, but our main reason for going there was that Maria, the owner, loved French people so of course Eric charmed her into letting us in in the middle of the night!
We only spent the day in Iquique. It's a pretty town with beaches
and not a whole lot to do, but a nice stopover. Next stop was an 18 hour journey to La Serena - couldn't wait!
It wasn't too bad in the end, we saw Gladiator in Spanish, the Matrix 2 and Miss Congeniality 2. Also had a fat sleep! In La Serena we checked into a hostel, than rang the observatory we wanted to visit in Vicuña to book our places for the next day. Unfortunately, it was closed the next day, but we could go today! Back to the hostel to say "un problema, observatoria in Vicuña non e possibile mañana, solo oy. retourno aqui mañana." I think she understood. Our Spanish is getting better by the day!
Back to the bus station, we were missing being on the bus - it had been about 45 minutes! At Vicuña we found a gorgeous hostel with a "good breakfast". Good? FANTASTIC! We'll have that please.
We spent that evening at the observatory, it was a beautiful clear night and the moon wasn't even out shining its big bright head in our eyes and therefore spoiling our view of the fainter stars. The telescope had a 30cm lens, and
through it we saw LOTS of stars, the Orion Nebula, another galaxy, Mars (wasn't as red as I thought it'd be), Jupiter (complete with 4 clear moons) and Saturn (the best one as we could see its rings!).
The next day we headed back to La Serena, and relaxed, ready for our final bus trip down to Santiago the next morning....
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Hola chicos
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que bien hablais espanol!!
hola!!!!!!!! and i was under the impression travellers stayed in cockroach infested rooms with nothing to eat but bread and water! not so for my lady of leisure there - nice pose eleni!!! Never mind the sandboarding, incas, planets... what's impressed me is the old spanish!!! Think we'd better start some lessons when you get back!! Friends and family discount of course!!!! Have fun and safe jouurney to New Zealand if we dont speak before! andreaxxxxxxxxxxxxxx