Christine and Tereza's Trip to La Serena

La Serena is a cozy city, population 170,000 people, 12 hours by bus south of Antofagasta. It's located right on the ocean and sits right next to the city of Coquimbo. Tereza, another volunteer from the Czech Republic, and I decided to make a weekend trip to the lustrious city! Here's the trail of our trip.

We landed in La Serena Friday morning after taking an overnight bus. We visited the Japonese Gardens which offered a peaceful, serene atmosphere. We walked around, looked at the massive goldfish, swimming swans, waterfall, and half way climbed trees.

Then we strolled the streets around downtown. We found a Juvenile Orchestra playing in the main plaza and then happened onto some artesian vendors. We stopped at this gentlemans booth with some interesting work. We ended up giving him some big sales. He threw in a pair of free earrings for me. He let us come behind his work table to see how he makes his art. Very neat!Then we headed back to the hostel to check-in. Afterwards we rented bikes and bicycled to Coquimbo and back. It took a few hours and the bike trail was right along the ocean. It was beautiful, green, and gorgeous apartment buildings along the coast. We were told by a local that an apartment along the coast rents for about $300/month. Not bad huh! Only problem is thats from March-Dec. Jan and February it jumps up to about $300/DAY! Yikes!

Above we made it to Coquimbo. In the background there is a nice little cafe. We enjoyed a cool drink and fruit salad before heading back.

That night we stumbled upon a salsa "class." We stayed for a short while before heading back to get some rest for the night. I loved our hostel room. We had hot showers and a TV. I don't watch TV much at all (twice in 5 months i think) so TV is a luxury for me!

The next day we had breakfast at the hostel before hittin the road for our day tour to the Valle de Elqui. We saw papaya trees, mandarin orange orchards, and lots of vineyards with table grapes and pisco grapes! We stopped at a pisco processing plant where we had the opportunity to try pisco in its infancy as well as a 3 year old pisco. What a difference. Wasn't to crazy about both but it was neat to see the plant. I think my face explains it all.

We visited cute cities like Vicuña. We saw where the famous Gabriel Mistral lived for the first 9 years of her life. She was the first Chilean to be awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature. She was also very active in womens rights. She died in New York City in her 70s.

I could post many more pictures but I won't. We had a really nice time and it is an absolutely charming city and very different from Antofagasta.

Chao!

CW