La Serena and Arica, Chile
Trip Start
Jan 16, 2007
1
21
42
Trip End
May 18, 2007
Arica,
Chile
Monday, April 2, 2007
Docked by 8am at Coquimbo, a mainly industrial port, but allowing us to access a local town called La Serena, so we took the coach in. It is a lovely place - beautiful town square with a huge variety of trees, a lovely friendly market area, and generally just very friendly without any hassling which often goes with cruise ship visits. We wandered around, stopped for some lunch, did a little shopping - all the traditional stuff, then took the return bus after an excellent day. At the quayside a local band played for the sailaway with many local people gathered for the send off. Pelicans are everywhere at the ports here so it was a pretty idyllic time.
Thursday 22nd March - at sea day. Forced to eat, lounge around, swim, eat..........
Friday 23rd March - Docked at Arica, most northerly port in Chile. We wandered into the town and it was immediately clear that there was a big celebration going on - lots of marching bands, people in national costume, banners, balloons, speeches and so on. Add to this some fascinating local architecture - two buildings designed and made by Gustave Eiffel in Paris and then shipped out for assembly in Arica - and it seemed quite a place to be at this point in time. We were later told that the major attraction of the day was in fact the President of Chile speaking - we've yet to get that confirmed but no reason to disbelieve it. It seems that there was some major celebration of the region - possibly some greater autonomy of government - and here we were to see it. Another excellent day and our last in Chile as we now head further north to Peru.
