La Serena

Last weekend was a long weekend because we had the first of November off for All Saints Day. I’m not sure if they call it “dia de los muertos“ or not, but the idea behind the Mexican holiday is the same. I asked Gloria and she said they go visit the graves of their family members on this day. Regardless, I decided to take advantage of the four day weekend by traveling to La Serena, which is about five hours south of here.

La Serena is a really nice town. It had been awhile since I’d been out of the desert and I forgot how nice grass was! The town itself is just so pleasant because it’s a strolling town. It reminded me of downtown Naperville because on a nice day you’ll see so many people out taking advantage of the weather and going for leisurly strolls and windowshoping. I liked it! It even had a mall! Anyone who knows me know I love love love ice cream; of all varieties and flavors. Ice cream, soft serve, gelato, frozen yogurt, yumm they are all delightful, just spare me the sorbet. There was this cool frozen yogurt shop in the mall where you could pick your choice of fruit and then they had blocks of different flavored frozen yogurt, and you had the option to add a block of sugar as well. They throw it all into a bowl where this machine mixes it all up and viola! You’ve got frozen yogurt! It was cool and yummy.

Marc was super happy to find a few items we’d been scouring Copiapó. One, a plain gray jumper (hoodie) and two, a squash ball. We´ve made multiple trips to our ¨mall¨ and never had luck finding either, but La Serena had both! He was a happy bear.

We had met up with a few other volunteers Friday night and went out in Coquimbo, the town right next to La Serena. I regrete not having enough time to explore Coquimbo during the day, but maybe next time because the following night we went to Vicuña. There we booked a tour of an observatory where we saw some stars, glaxies and jupiter through a moderately sized telescope. It was a midnight, and it ended around 3 so we were all exhausted by the end. But this town had sooo many stars because it´s rarely every cloudy. If you´ve ever been in the middle of the ocean at night and looked up, you could serriously see just as many stars in this town! You could see three different glaxisies with the naked eye! The milky way and two others that were just forming. Thanks to the tour, I also finally realized why you can´t see the big dipper or the north star...I´d been searching. Also, the Orien I´d been seeing is actually flipped upside down. I never noticed because I´ve always just picked out the seven stars which just so happened to be symetrical.

I think our hostel owner in Vicuña is worth mentioning because he gets a coolest guy award. So we already hasseled him before meeting him by changing our reservation maybe 3 times. But he was so nice about it. Originally from Buenos Aires, his parents were Spanish. And upon meeting me, he immediately tells me I am beautiful and that Marc should be careful because they will steal me away in Buenos Aires. He later makes comments on wanting to kidnap Marc as well, after lovingly kissing him hello and goodbye. Usually, a handshake is the norm between men, but close friends and relatives will kiss on the cheek. El era un buen onda! Also, he wins best hostle award. The beds were so comfortable with actual sheets and comfortors, and the breakfast was the best hostle breakfast I´ve ever had! Real coffee, natural juice, eggs prepaired by request, fruit, cereal, and of course pan, but with a choice of three different jams! Unheard of! And all for about $20 a night, which is a bit pricey for hostles, but this wasn´t your typical hostle.

The next day we explored Vicuña a bit and checked out the Gabriella Mistral Musieum. Gabriella Mistral was the other Nobel prize winning poet from Chile. She was also a teacher in Vicuña, so we saw her tiny little house. Next stop, PISCO ELQUI! Pisco, Chile´s national liqure is like a brandy but made from specific grapes called pisco. Elqui valley is where pretty much all the country´s pisco is grown and produced. So it was only fitting to visit the king of Pisco´s distillery, Mistral. I can´t tell you much about the tour because I was feeling under the weather and not able to concentrate on Spanish that day, but from what I gathered growing the grapes is pretty much the same process as any vineyard, and the distilling process is pretty much the same as any whisky distillation.

We had one more night (Halloween) which was spent pretty laid back in la Serena and the next day we had to catch our bus back to Copiapó. It was really weird to think that it was my last weekend traveling in Chile. I only had three weeks left in Copiapó, then what?

Well, I have travel plans pretty much planned out until January. My program ends November 24th, from there I have 2 weeks to travel the south of Chile with a fellow Chicagoland chica from the program. From there we fly to Lima and meet Marc and his friend to do some hiking! Machu Pichu and Colca canyon. From there we´re flying back to Santiago, spending Christmas with a friend of Mallory´s (my cousin) and then I think I´m going to try and make it to Buenos Aires for NYE and try and find something to do there to stay a little longer. If I can get the visa situation figured out, I may be able to add a trip to Brazil with Marc, but that´s still an if. We´ll see what happens, I´m going to be drifting for awhile, but I think I´m ready for that!