La Serena

We had a long weekend becuase there is a holiday on Tuesday, so some friends and I decided to take a trip. Meg, Patrick and I took an overnight bus, that left at 10:30 PM to La Serena, which is about 6 hours north of Valpo, but a 7 hour bus ride. I wasn't able to sleep much on the bus, but when we arrived in La Serena, we checked into our hostal and got a few hours of rest before we began touring the town. For those that don't know, hostals are like budget hotels that a lot of young travellers stay in. They are all over Europe and South America, and i'm sure other places too, and a wonderful way to meet people while travelling on a budget! Our first day in La Serena, we decided to walk around the town to see all of the sights. La Serena is the second oldest town in Chile, so there is a lot of history there. The town is full of cathedrals, and some of them were gorgeous! We walked from our hostal down to the beach, and stopped to take pictures along the way. It was a very long walk, but the sights were well worth it! We spent some time on the shore and at the lighthouse, which was so different than any lighthouse i've ever seen! The coast was beautiful, and you could see mountains in the background. The water was freezing becuase it is part of the Pacific ocean, so we had to settle for dipping our feet in! After the lighthouse we continued walking and went to the famous Japanese Gardens in La Serena. Since it is winter here, there were no flowers, but it was still beautiful! There were tons of plants, waterfalls, fountains and swans. It was very peaceful, and there was even a group of people doing yoga in the gardens! I saw black swans for the first time, i`d never even heard of them before! We walked around the gardens for awhile, and then went to the huge market where local people set up booths with all kinds of handmade, authentic chilean products. It was huge and there was so much to take in! I bought a few small souveneirs, and we decided to have lunch at a restaurant up above the market. There were several restaurants above the market, and we were told that they had the best sea food in town. When we walked up the stairs, we were bombarded by people who worked at the restaurants, all trying to convince us to eat at theirs! After ten minutes of trying to walk around and make a decision, all the while being grabbed in every direction by the workers, we finally decided on one and had a wonderful lunch. All of the restaurants have a house special, that includes bread, soup, either salad or rice, and either fish or beef. It was very good but we were exhausted and after lunch decided to go back to the hostal to rest for a while. We had dinner later that night, then went out to a pub that had a live band. It was a lot of fun but we knew we had to wake up early and had a long day so we headed back to sleep. The second day we signed up for a 9 hour tour of the Elqui Valley. A van picked us up at our hostal at 9 AM to start the tour. There were 9 people on our tour, and the guide talked during the entire trip, telling us the history of the things we were seeing. We made several stops that day, to see amazing views of the Elqui Valley. It looked like something from a postcard! The scenery the whole day was beautiful and made driving in the van enjoyable. The roads were lined with mountains, vinyards and fruit trees. We made our way through the mountains and the valley, to a town called Vicuña. Here, we had a traditional Chilean lunch, then took a tour of a Pisco Factory. Pisco is a liquor that is only made in Chile. It is made out of grapes, similar to how wine is made, but there are several more steps to the process. The town had vinyards everywhere, but it isn`t quite the season for grapes to grow so we saw the foundations for which the grapes grow. Vicuña is also the hometown of poet Gabriela Mistral, who in was awarded the Nobel prize of Literature in 1945. She was the first woman ever to win this award. We got to tour her old schoolhouse and dormitory, then got back on the vans to head back to La Serena. After about an hour and a half van ride, we were back at our hostal. We rested for awhile after another long day then went out for Chinese food! It was definitely an experience trying to understand what was on the menu. We decided on dishes, still not quite sure what we were getting, but it ended up being great. The chinese food here is similar to that in the states, but not as much fried foods and sauces. That night we went out to another pub that was doing Karaoke. We were the only Americans in the bar, and were convinced to do Karaoke like the Chileans! Luckily they had a list of songs in English as well, so we sang to Like a Virgin by Madonna. It was so fun and everyone cheered for us and sang along. Definitely a trip to remember! I've already posted all of the pictures from our trip!