La Serena, Chile

We arrived in La Serena Thursday morning after the (hopefully) longest bus ride of our trip-19 hours. Luckily, I was able to sleep most of the night, so it wasn't too bad. Chile has weird boarder crossings within the country. We had to stop at one and have our luggage "searched." I'm not sure how glancing into my purse and shoving a hand into the sides of my backpack is going to find anything, but whatever.

After being on the beaches of Iquique in a bikini, I was pretty bummed to see fog. We taxied to our hostel and went to the roof to see the view of the town...

welcome La Serena-there's the ocean

and here is the rest of the view 

The next day we wandered down to the beach. Well, we tried. Chilean Spanish makes me feel insane. I'm already horrible at Spanish, but here I literally have no idea what anyone is saying and they don't understand anything I try to say. Seriously, even "baño" caused a confused face today. We walked towards the ocean forever and ended up in a neighborhood. I asked a guy standing in his yard where the beach was. He explained (luckily with a lot of pointing) and I thanked him. We then ended up in a housing construction zone and then finally saw sand and heard the ocean.

getting lost isn't all bad 

cloudy, but I'm used to that 

littered in rocks and shells 

he's trying to hide, but that's Jesus!

After the beach, we had lunch and then walked into another neighborhood; this one never ended. Sometimes I get really sick of how much walking is involved in traveling and this was one of those times. For some reason, La Serena has got us lost more than anywhere else. I'm not sure what it is. When we got back to the hostel, we hung out upstairs in a cool little sun room that we took over. Alcohol made all the walking pain disappear. 

The next day was beautiful, but we were pretty over the town and needed a break from wandering. We decided to go to the movies instead. Prometheus! It was great. I was happy. More wine and a sunset made this a good day.

 buenos días La Serena

y buenas noches 

We woke up early Sunday to go sailing out to Damas Island. We were both stoked about seeing penguins and just finally doing something again. The van arrived around 9am and we headed out. We stopped at a gas station for a little introduction and briefing on the day. Everyone grabbed snacks and used the restroom and then gathered back at the van. Bad news: the ocean has gone batshit crazy and we can't go sailing. No penguins today. Damn Mother Nature.

Our hostel receptionist said we could bus out to Elqui Valley for the day instead and we agreed that would be nice. We were in desperate need of a laundromat first though, so we walked through town again and ended up visiting a flea market while waiting for the laundromat to open (in 2 hours...) I found a Star Wars comic in Spanish and a tiny Han Solo, but each seller was asking $3,000 ($6 USD) and neither were budging and I refused to pay. I'm mostly bummed about Han. He's so sexy even in teeny tiny plastic form.

one of the many dogs that follow us through South America

the world's most expensive garage sale

We went back to the hostel and then headed to the bus. I don't know if it's us or this town is just fucking confusing as hell, but we walked in circles even after asking a guy which bus went to Pisco Elqui. He saw us giving up on a bench and was so kind to walk us to the bus and even talk to the driver. I wanted to hug him, but wasn't sure if that would just creep him out.

It was a beautiful ride into the valley. We wandered the town and then got Serena Libres (pisco and papaya), wine, and steak. That was about all of our time in the valley, but I was fully satisfied. 

papas fritas WITH EVERYTHING!