Hotel Canto Del Agua La Serena

... arrived about 8.50.......food was hurriedly scoffed down and we slunk onto the bus feeling like naughtly school kids after glares from the driver. But don´t know why he made a fuss since we stood around in the observatory carpark drinking pisco sours and eating crisps for at least three quarters of an hour when we arrived !!!<br>The observatory is a tourisr one (the proper scientific one in the area only does tours on saturdays during the day and you ...

... Saturn and its rings, and clusters of stars. The latter were particularly amazing because when you regard the night sky with your naked eye there is just blackness or maybe what appears to be a very faint star, then when you look into the telescope there are about two thousand stars winking at you - truly spectacular. We also got an up close and personal look at the moon, which was pretty amazing. It was qute a spectacle overall, and a very different way to spend a Saturday night!

... I smiled and gave her my best reassurances. I found a coffee shop and was not disappointed... I then walked back to the internet where I left Mike. As we walked back to the hotel I told Mike the story of the badge and gave him one, I also explained to him just how lucky we were to find a room because of the Dakar rally. We laugh at our good fortune. Later in the evening a couple pulled up on a 2008 KLR, they went into the office and were obviously looking for a ...

... children. Towards the end of the beach we were a few restaurants and bars where we stopped off for a few drinks to watch an amazing sun set over the 88m high cross on the horizon. It was a beautiful afternoon and was a great stop-off to break the long bus trip to Valparaiso. The next morning it was up early to catch the first bus to Valparaiso which was fortunately now only a few hours (7 to be exact) away. As we had ...

... centre. Not many people come to La Serena to see the city itself; it´s more of a base that people use to make day trips elsewhere. Though it´s a pretty small town, I managed to take a fairly lengthy stroll around town to see the Iglesia San Francisco and the Iglesia de Las Carmelitas. Back to Plaza de Armas and the adjacent market, in search of souvenirs and food. I ran into Mario again ... and suffered through another lengthy, one-sided conversation ...

... were walking (well jumping really) all the way up the cliff to there little nests, there were really small penguins and i really wanted to bring one home although apparently that is not allowed. After seeing the penguins we stopped off at a neighboring island on which I felt very much like i was in pirates of the Caribbean (even though it was a little cold). I was given an hour to explore the island ...

... on the ground in Santiago was drizzly and COLD. Weird contrast. We landed a bit after 7 but had to go through nearly two hours of screenings and customs etc etc. We got on the bus bound for La Serena a little after 10. Most of the view was of el campo, the countryside, and the mountains, with the terraced farming and tiny houses. After several hours, we were traveling along the coast, and at one point we saw a band of wild horses ...

... some locals whos brother lived in America we were presented with four slices of tomato some lettuce and half a plate of rice....and the ubiquitos bread and salsa....salsa and rice turned out to be quite tasty!! That evening we set off on an over night bus up to antofagasta, to my delight we were provided with a late night snack and breackfast!! I did cause our lovely bus man some concern as i insisted on having the curtains open all night but we ...

... birthday! It was still sorta funny, that the birthday song was only sung for me, hehe. And everybody from the birthday boy's party wanted to have their picture taken with me, the foreigner. They had never seen me before as most of them were from a totally different friend group than me. So I had to pose like 20 times, for 20 differet people!<br><br>Then the birthday scene was over. After searching for a while, I finally found a store selling Thai food! And it was not far from where I ...

... gigantic bed, cable TV and a poor breakfast consisting of saltcrackers and tea. For the life of me I don't remember the name of the hotel at this moment - I'll write it down in I find it somewhere.<br><br>The next day I took my huge suitcase which was only meant to go to Argentina and be left there until I returned, after my big journey, to TurBus Cargo. I didn't really feel like carrying it all over Chile, so I just shipped it the next 3.000 km, to Santiago. So ...