La Serena

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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 capture the room on video. I like it because it is cheap and close to the Terminal. Sharls, well that is another story. I named her Rio Tinto about six months ago for a very good reason. Her other nickname should be ‘There’s’ for the fact she is always saying there’s a Hilton, there’s a Sheraton, there’s a???- you get my drift? For the rest of the day we just walk and kill time watching the street buskers doing their thing. Had some empanadas and did a bit of shopping. The room was quite comfortable after all. Haha.
Sharls says: Obviously Sixto is speaking for himself! I was mortified – it did end up being quite clean on the bed if you exclude the dirty walls and the odd piece of snot on the wall by the bed! The sheets were clean and the pillows were double pillow slipped, but I was NOT getting in to that shower!


Jueves 18th Agosto 2011 ( My 40th)

Wake up on the morning of my 40th hoping like hell we can get to Mendoza. Luck was not on our side, so we revert to Plan B - get a refund and jump on the 10 o’clock bus north to La Serena. We sit in a café before the bus trip and Sharls organizes a hotel for the night. Man, can this girl spend! A flash as Michael Jackson hotel. Its winter and this place has pools (yes plural) spas and all the box and dices. She uses the excuse that it’s my birthday and I deserve a nice place. Hmm I’m onto her.

Sharls says: pfffft! He loved it. Its the “Serena Dream Hotel thank you very much!!
The hostel I tried to book didn’t have a room available. Whats a girl going to do given the short notice ;-). Mind you we moved from Dogsville to Sticksville. This fancy pants hotel looks like its out in the booneys- we travel down dirt roads with what looks like nothing around us, and there are no others guests either.


The buses in Chile are fantastic - very comfortable, clean and very efficient. The best thing about them really is the passengers. We get a good laugh at the ‘Get Up’ some people are wearing. We have Kosmo Kramer a few seats in front, and the ladies behind us don’t stop talking and eating from the minute they are on board unless or course, they are sleeping. When we stop for a break, I take off my beanie and it is covered in chips and biscuits that have been half chewed and spat at me whilst they talk and eat. LOL

Sharls says: He forgets to mention that while he is sleeping I hear this noise from the back of the bus. Its sounds like a slurper, and its getting louder and louder and I’m getting more and more annoyed. All of a sudden the tone changes, and I realize the man is snoring his head off. I look at the lady in the seat next to me and we start crying laughing, and I stand up to get a better look and catch the eye of some of the other passengers, who also join in. As we all settle down again and accept our fate, I hear a grunt from Sixto beside me. Needless to say he got a swift elbow to the ribs before he got started as well! lol

We arrive and get a taxi out to the Michael Jackson hotel. The restaurant is closed so he organises us a taxi to a ‘nice Italian restaurant’ on the beach. Yes it all sounds romantic (expensive). We hop into the taxi and the driver gets on the radio and says picking up from said hotel and dropping off at said restaurant. I hear an almighty laugh on the radio and he virtually drops us off 30 seconds later. The owner of the hotel must think we are bloody idiots as the restaurant is just around the corner. Naturally we walk back with, of course, a bottle of red in hand. The romantic restaurant on the beach was a pizza parlour with very ordinary service. The Chilean wine made up for everything. A great place to be for my 40th with my beautiful wife.

Sharls says: What are you saying Sixto? Seriously, the Chilean wine was like the rest of the evening – cheap and nasty! I couldn’t even drink it!! This better not be the start of a new trend for ‘romantic dinners’!

Friday 19th August. (Vienes)
I’m back! The owner of the apartment we want to stay at has emailed to say he needs a deposit for the room or he cant book it. Shane has a better idea – lets just ‘rock up’. Well for those of you know who have heard the stories about Tassie and Vietnam, the old ‘rock up, rarely works out very well. In fact, I’ll go so far as to say that while Shane and I have been together, it has never worked out! This morning is no different. They don’t have any rooms until tomorrow, so he directs us to another hostel around the corner, which although it looks a bit dodgy, is quite tidy and clean and has a nice feel to it.
We dump our bags and head off for a walk of the second oldest city in Chile. Its really charming and we feel very at home here in the town. The city itself has a whopping 29 churches, and while we were at the Plaza de Armas, we walked into the beautiful cathedral there. Now those of you who know Shane, knows he likes the artistry and architecture of religion, but is agnostic himself. He agrees to come in with me and behold, an angel did appear, the organs began to play and the choir began to sing!!!!!! Well, there were no angels but they were in the middle of choir practice, and we must have sat and listened for around half an hour – it was really beautiful.
So we will move tomorrow to the other place as it has a laundry and we need to wash clothes.

Shane says- Sharls needs to wash, she has heaps of bed bug bites on her back. Lol (between you and I its only a bit red, but have to tell her otherwise). She reckons she probably got bed bug bites or lice from ‘Dogsville’. Lol


Saturday 20th August (Sabado)

Well, this was our last day in La Serena and I reckon we have walked about 20 km today because we were on the go from 10-4 this afternoon!! We walked down to the coast this morning after booking our third and final bus ticket to Mendoza!! If we can’t get over the Pass tomorrow we aren’t going to try again, we will just head north to somewhere.
The coast is one of the most amazing I have ever seen, and if you turn to the left, you can also see the snow capped mountain peaks behind the town in the distance. Alas, I can’t help thinking that shit better be melted by tomorrow!
Instead of taking the scenic route home Shane decides we should take the most direct route- a bit of a short cut. I don’t call him ‘short cut Shane’ for nothing. It either takes us twice as long to get somewhere or it’s the ugliest route you could take. Today it was the ugly route over a little stone and dirt road along the side of the highway. Noyce! We both have terrible sunburn too.
Have checked into Hostel Balmaceda. It has a little kitchen so Sixto has bought some pasta and sauce to cook up for dinner tonight. I went down to the office to see if towels and a tea towel were provided as there were none in the room. Victor gave them to me- no charge for the tea towel, and about 20 cents for each of the towels. So I walk back to the room and Shane says ‘Did you have to pay for them? What did you pay for towels for? I have a little towel in the back pack we could both have used!’ I’m like ‘pull your head in – its 40 cents!” Muy Dios!!!
I have a good feeling about the bus tomorrow but we’ll see where we end up :-)

Shane says- It was a real ugly short cut, but it did shave about 30 minutes off the walk. Had a lovely lunch on the beach, right on the water. About 95% of the restaurants menus are only written in Espanol, so Sharls and I have to try and decipher what is written or just have a crack. When we have a crack like today it can be very entertaining. I ordered the Simple Poisson and Sharls ordered the New Poisson. I ended up with two coffees a mango juice and a cheese and ham sandwich. Lovely by the way. Sharls got a coffee a huge sandwich with cheese, tomato and lettuce and a big piece of lemon pie. All for the grand sum of 7000 pesos. The views from the café where just outstanding. This place is just amazing and we only came across it by default by not being able to get into Argentina. It’s funny how many times in our previous travels that we have come across places that turned out to be great although we had no intentions of visiting, but had to because of certain issues.

By the way boys, I’m manning up and the ‘Pooey’ is back on and growing. Lol

Sharls says: Oh really…mmmm. We’ll see how long he can hold out!
He’s just gone out to pick up a couple of beers, because the 3 he just finished weren’t enough. There’s nothing open nearby and he’s been gone ages. How far does a man walk for a beer? I wouldn’t be surprised if he rocks on in with a cheap bottle of red. Chile is renowned for it amazing red wine and he still insists on buying the $2 bottles!

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Photos

Bus to La Serena
this pastry chef gets on the bus and sells pastries from a huge bucket.

Downtown La Serena
Where's Sixto?

Downton La Serena
Because I could LOL

Short Cut Shane
On the road again!

Comments

[Ronnie Sanders]

Go Golly
Any good surf waves there Golly?

[Gwen Cameron]

Hi kids
Had a good laugh at this blog, sounds like fun, hope you can get over the mountains. Love Mum xxoo