La Serena & Valle de Elqui

Hola Todos!!

Our trip to La Serena was awesome. La Serena is about 6 hours north of Valparaíso, situated right on the coast. We left last Wednesday night and arrived in La Serena at 4:15 a.m. Luckily we arrived as scheduled because we almost missed our bus. We were waiting at the wrong terminal in Santiago until about 15 minutes before we were supposed to leave, I looked at our tickets. The main bus station in Santiago is actually split up into three different terminals. San Borja, the one our tickets were for was about 4 blocks away at the end of a shopping mall. I sprinted down the main street and through the mall with all my bags. My sweatpants kept falling down and my shoelaces came untied…I was definitely an entertaining sight for all the mall shoppers.

After we arrived we took a nap at our hostel then rented bikes. We rode all the way to Coquimbo, a small town about 4 miles outside of La Serena. Even though it was foggy (they call the thick fog “camanchaca” and cold (as you can see from the pics), we put on our gloves and scarves and peddled away. On day two we went on a group tour to Isla Damas to see penguins. Only about 12 penguins decided to show up for us, but luckily it was sea lion and dolphin play day and we saw tons of bottle nose dolphins. Olive oil is the main product in the area and Jess and I bought a bottle from the cutest Chilean woman. We wanted to take a picture with her (see below). She was so excited that she took of her hat and fixed her hair. We also saw a few lamas grazing on our drive back.

The next day we went on a tour through Valle de Elqui. Valle de Elqui is prime pisco property. There are several pisco factories throughout the area. On the tour we visited one of the oldest pisco factories in the region. I’m a fan of pisco, but my favorite part was eating the grapes from the field. The pisco was too strong for me. We stopped at a few small pueblos along the way to walk through the plazas and churches. At one of the churches, a wedding was taking place. It was really cool, especially because the bride was pregnant. One of my favorite stops was at the dam. We walked the whole length of it and saw beautiful views of the entire valley. For lunch we ate at a solar restaurant. They cook all the dishes in small solar ovens outside the front of the restaurant. I ate a goat dish. It was delicious.

That night we stayed in Valle de Elqui in a small town called, Vicuña. Vicuña is home to several of the world’s best star observatories. We did a late night tour of the Mamalluca Observatory. It was incredible. They let us look through a huge telescope at all the different stars. My favorite constellation was the Southern Cross which you can see perfectly.

On our last day, we explored on our own. We went to a spot where two rivers meet. One is a greenish grey color and the other a dark blue. Then we had lunch at an outdoor pizza café. It was a great last day to a very fun trip.

Tomorrow is a big day for our Tías and Tíos event. We are playing soccer and then taking the kids to a soccer game in Valpo. I will be sure to post again soon!

Chao!