8/16/15: Viña del Mar

Today was left open on our schedule because Santiago is such a short bus ride from Valparaiso, and even if we spent today in the Valparaiso area, we would still have 3 full days to explore Santiago - enough to get a good feel of it. Since we had the time, we decided that it would be a great idea to take a bus to the nearby city of Viña del Mar - not nearly as touristy, but with some nice attractions and only 15 minutes away by bus.

It was definitely worth it to go! Viña del Mar is home to a Flower Clock - it's huge and reminds me of something that I would see in Disney Land, and the best thing is that it works! Furthermore, since it was a Sunday morning, there were almost no other people around, which made it really nice to walk around.

In addition, unlike Valparaiso, Viña del Mar has a beautiful coastline. You can see far and wide, and it has large rocks that make it gorgeous. There are also several hotels along the coast - we saw this huge Marriott - that are shaped like ships.

We walked around a lot, stopping first at a lagoon. I thought it might be worth it to see from the pictures posted on Trip Advisor, but honestly, it wasn't that nice. The ground/path all around it was covered in bird droppings (the benches were basically completely white) and there was a cute little bridge that had essentially collapsed into the lagoon on the side. Disappointing.

Next, we walked to the Plaza de Armas. I was expecting something beautiful - even in small cities the Plazas I've seen are really nice - but this one was basically a little bit of green space and sadly pretty ugly. It turns out that a lot of Viña del Mar is not worth visiting - probably why tourists so rarely go there as opposed to Valparaiso.

Still, there was a little Fonck Museum with all kinds of artifacts from Easter Island, a nice place to walk around a little. Even though there was very little English (once again), it was nice to walk around a explore a little It was unique in that it had some information about smaller cultures in the area that I hadn't seen before, and distinct pottery from them.

We tried to take the subway back to Valparaiso from there, but apparently it doesn't go to all the stations every day. I hate how that works, but oh well. We ended up taking a bus instead, and then taking another bus to the bus station. On the drive to Santiago they showed How I Met Your Mother with Spanish subtitles, which was actually pretty cool! I might try that more if I get the chance.

We ate dinner in the bus station in Santiago - it's huge. Each company has a terminal and it's almost like a scaled-down airport, bustling with people, full of shops and restaurants, everything. The Santiago subway system is really nice and actually has different fares for different times of the day - charging the most for rush hour, of course!

The AirBnb we have here is rather small. The host, Francisco, is a late-20s guy living with his entire family in a condo, and our room is a separate little thing with a private bathroom. It's nice, except that the room is barely wider than the bunk bed - there might be a foot of space between it and the wall. Lol. Well, at least the host and his family are nice. He offered to walk us to the grocery store and then his mom offered us all kinds of maps and stuff,

8/15/15: Valparaiso pt. 2

The main purpose of today was to work up to see La Sebastiana - the Nobel Laureate in Literature Pablo Neruda's home in Valparaiso - the first of three. Since it's a little bit out of the way, Dad and I went to several of the attractions along the way before getting there.

We started in the fish market and walked around a little more. We wanted to buy some water, but when we did I wasn't paying attention and we accidentally bought carbonated water instead of regular (in my defense the label was clear enough that Dad could have read it too). Oh well.

We continued on, stopping to eat a completo (hot dog, tomato chunks, mayonnaise, and avocado) for lunch. There was a huge gate in the park that we walked through after that, so we stopped to take some pictures there before moving on.

Before going from the flat "plan" to the hill again, we went to the Museum of Natural History. The museums in Chile are seriously fantastic - many of them are free (this one included) and include great exhibits. In central Chile, they often have many different exhibits of all the habitats in Chile, from the mountains and Altiplano to the valleys to the forests to the coasts/ocean. Easter Island gets a separate exhibit - I wonder if that's because it brings in huge tourist dollars for the country. Like many of the other free museum, it had some English, describing the main ideas but very little English in the exhibits themselves. I can't expect too much, I guess.

One of my favorite things to see in Valparaiso so far was next: the Museo de Cielo Abierto, aka the Open Air Museum. This isn't a formal museum, but rather a series of 20 murals lining a staircase and neighborhood. They have been there since the 1990s with no vandalism (common in Valparaiso) - which is quite impressive. Some of the murals are huge - larger than life-size. The artistic talent shown in them is worth seeing and definitely worth preserving.

It was quite a walk from there to La Sebastiana because we were walking up the cerro, but we made it eventually! The streets next to it are lined with tour buses and little artisan shops; I bought some earrings for friends at a great price. La Sebastiana itself is absolutely worth visiting. Like everything else in Valparaiso, it resembles a ship, giving it a really unique facade. Before getting there, I knew relatively little about Pablo Neruda - especially since he wrote in Spanish. His house, however, it really gorgeous. It is made of 5 stories, each with just one or two rooms. The narrow spaces is  meant to remind the guests of a boat - and it certainly does. There are large windows on the side that faces the heart of the city and the coast, and Neruda has a ton of art, books, and fancy furniture everywhere. He had kind of a complicated personal life - he married one lady and then met someone else, and eventually married her instead, but lived with them in different houses, etc. but he was apparently very good to his friends and obviously a great poet. He served Chile as an ambassador to several countries, stood up for human rights during the Chilean dictatorship, and managed a great collection of art and books, so good for him! It was really awesome to be able to be so close to his life in a way that was extremely different from Gabriela Mistral's house. The entrance fee to the house was a little pricey, but well worth it for the history, the view, and the information given through the audio guide included with the ticket. Very well done museum - highly recommended!

Dad and I weren't really sure what to do for the rest of the day, so we ended up walking along Ave. Alemania (Germany in Spanish) across the top of the hills. It was quite a long walk everywhere, but there was one lookout point that provided a great portrait of Valparaiso from the aerial view.

When we got back down to the plan, we looked for places to eat. Apparently, Valparaiso is home to one of the top 25 ice cream shops in the world. Even though it wasn't hot, we obviously still have to go try it. We ended up ordering this banana manjar and dark chocolate combination that tasted fantastic! I don't know if it's the best in the world - I'm pretty sure gelato in Europe can compete like no other - but a great choice, and especially a great combination!

8/14/15: Valparaiso day 1

Dad and I arrived pretty early to Valparaiso this morning - which wasn't helped by the fact that it was still dark out. Luckily he had a working phone (a luxury these days) and we were able to take the bus towards our AirBnb. After the difficult conditions of the Couchsurf house in La Serena (where we had to share a twin size bed, and the room had another two people sharing another twin size bed), I think my dad was a lot more relieved to find that our room in Valparaiso was a lot more spacious and had a really comfortable, queen bed.

Our hosts were really nice! They were two French guys who were relatively new to Chile but could speak pretty good English. They sat down with us to explain a lot of the tourist-y things that we could do in the city. It was a whole lot of information that I couldn't really completely understand, but it was really nice of them to offer.

After doing a little research on the city and resting a little, Dad and I headed out into the city. It was a little confusing to figure out at first, but we eventually got the hang of it. Basically, Valparaiso is a really unique city with a vibe that is unparalleled. It feels a little like a college/young adult town at all times, and is without a doubt the most hipster place I've been to in South American thus far.

We were right next to the Naval Museum, which we decided to visit. They had a good number of artifacts there, and we spent at least a couple hours in there, which was cool. There was limited English, but at least they had some! A lot of the information centered on the War of the Pacific at the turn of the 20th century, which I have thought is interesting as it is mentioned ubiquitously in Chile but not in Peru or Bolivia. Yes, Chile won, but it's a part of history! It tells us why Bolivia used to be so large and now is so small, and why there are such hostile sentiments between it and Chile.

Right outside the Naval Museum is a small walkway known as Paseo 21 de Mayo (the Chilean Independence Day) that has all sorts of artisan products. It also has an ascensor, which is equivalent to a sort of slanted elevator - apparently aka funicular - that is very common in Valparaiso. The reason is that Valparaiso is a geographically unique city: it is divided into two main parts - the "plan" and the "cerros". The "Plan" is the flat part of the city - where the center is, where everything happens, the downtown. It also connects to the port and beach. Towards the center of the country and continent are the cerros - the hills. There are some tourist attractions here, including lots of street art and murals, and is where all the people actually live. Since they are sizable hills, they have steep stairs you can take, or ascensors that cost $100 CLP to go up or down. Many of them have been around a really long time and are constantly in repair (you never know if the one you want to take will be temporary shut down or not) but they are a really unique part of the city that are a major reason for the UNESCO World Heritage Site designation it has. We took a couple in our days in Valparaiso - worth it!

We walked to one of the main plazas in Valparaiso (it's confusing because the city doesn't have a Plaza de Armas, and therefore the couple of larger plazas are easily confused for the "main square") where we stopped by a tourist information center. Chile is really great because almost every single city has one, and they have all sorts of great information and really nice people. They told us about a Tours4Tips walking tour that would be happening later in the afternoon, so we took the time to go up the nearest hill (one of the most popular Cerro Concepcion) to a Fine Arts Museum - Palacio Baburizza. It was a touch expensive for Chilean museum standards, but interesting nonetheless. What I didn't appreciate was that they had some great art but absolutely no explanations, and charged extra for audio guides (on top of the entrance fee). Ugh. At least I got a student discount.

We went to the Tours4Tips afterwards, and it was a very, very well-done tour! Our tour guide was this guy from Colorado who was half-Chilean (maybe Chris was his name?), and very knowledgeable. Apparently after the California Gold Rush first started, Valparaiso was transformed into one of the richest port cities in South America because it was a great stop along the coast. That's the reason you can see so much extravagance - or at least what's left of it. After the construction of the Panama Canal, the wealth of the city moved with it. Before it did, however, Valparaiso was home to many things, from the first fire department to the first Protestant church. It has English, German, and other European parts of the city as well as streets of all kinds, named after Europeans.

Valparaiso also is really gorgeous because it has all sorts of street art. Anywhere you turn, you'll see murals and paintings over all the walls in the city that really brighten up the walk. The historical part of the city is also UNESCO-designated, including its system of trolleys (apparently some of the original ones from way back when are still in use). This designation comes with requirements, however - people owning property in this area are not allowed to change the facades or structures around it. That is, they are tasked with having to repair outsides of buildings that are falling apart on their own dime. We were taken to a house that had burned down about 10 years ago and was still in ruins because UNESCO guidelines state that property cannot be changed if the structure was still standing - and unfortunately for this property owner, the frames of the old house were still intact. For that reason, the designation is controversial among citizens, but the city refuses to give it up because it's a huge draw for tourists. That's the paradox of preservation, I guess.

The tour stopped by a little place that sold artisanal pastries - and gave us all an alfajor to try. They are incredible! Alfajores are basically two cookies/wafers joined by dulce de leche and sometimes dipped in chocolate (these were). Ugh SO GOOD. I also bought a salmon and cheese empanada that I think might have been the best empanada I've had. Absolutely worth the money.

The tour guide also recommended that we try a couple restaurants, so afterwards Dad and I tried a dish called chorrillana - a lot like pique macho in Bolivia, with fries on the bottom and topped with all sorts of meat/protein. Heart attack on a plate, but delicious as heck!

8/13/15: Elqui Valley

Elqui Valley tour today! Finally! In La Serena, there are four big tours that are generally available – Elqui Valley, Fray Jorge National Park, Punto Choros and Isla Damas, and the observatories. With the poor weather the past couple of days (lots of rain, and then cloudy skies to follow), most of the tours weren’t possible. Luckily, the Elqui Valley tour was.

The bus was supposed to pick us up between 8:45 and 9 am, but when it hadn’t come at 9:15, even I started getting a little nervous. It was only about 15 minutes late, but the tours before had been pretty on-time, or had contacted me somehow. Turns out there was nothing to worry about.

Our tour guide, Vale (nickname – I can’t remember her full name), spoke good English. She apparently lived a year in San Diego, but there were times when she couldn’t remember some English words. Still, with the Spanish that I knew and the context, I was able to understand everything, which was a marked difference from the tour I took to Lago Chungara where I understood basically half. If that. She also made sure to translate often – she would finish a thought and translate it directly into English, which was also a marked difference from my tour to Puno’s Uros and Taquile Islands, where the guide basically translated 25%, if that. Also, since Dad and I were the last to get picked up, we got to sneak a peek at the list of passengers. Apparently, the $25,000 CLP that we paid for the tour was less than what some others had paid - $28,000 and $30,000 per person. That made me sigh of relief, because I had been quoted $25,000 from the beginning and hadn’t asked for a better price. That’s my bad – we might have been able to get a better price, but at least I know we weren’t ripped off.

The Elqui Valley is quite pretty. Apparently, La Serena is the transition zone between the Atacama Desert of the north and the more moderate and rainy climate of Santiago and central Chile. The Elqui Valley embodies this transition, and there’s a dam that sort of marks the cloudy area and the sunny, temperate areas.

Our first stop was a pisco distillery. In case you don’t remember, pisco is a type of alcohol that I liken to vodka – though my knowledge of alcohols is quite limited. It generally comes from Peru and Chile, which are fighting over who “invented” the drink, and is often taken as pisco sour, which is the drink plus some lemon.

This particular distillery, Aba Pisquera, has been in the same spot for 3 generations and is family-owned. They grow their own grapes and process them all independently, which was also the case for the vineyard that I visited in Ica about two months ago (wow! Time flies!). They basically smash the grapes and make wine, which is then distilled into four types of alcohol – methanol, ethanol, propanol, and butanol – from which the ethanol is separated and used to make the pisco. All the piscos sit for 2 years before being bottled to recover the flavor of the grapes and the wood barrels that hold them in the meantime.

We were able to taste some samples – the mango sour and other fruit sour (some more specialized fruit that is imported from Southern Chile) were quite sweet and things I would imagine would be popular as shots at a college party. We were also able to try straight-up pisco – unflavored – which was like taking straight-up vodka. Ugh. Not a fan. At 40% alcohol, it was not an easy drink. Dad wanted to buy some, so he did, but I don’t think I’ll have any more.

We stopped by two little towns afterwards: Pisco Elqui and Monte Grande, which weren’t all that exciting. There was very little going on in either, especially since the Plaza de Armas and main church in Pisco Elqui were being renovated. Monte Grande was the hometown of Nobel Laureate in Literature, Gabriela Mistral. She is apparently extremely revered in the Elqui Valley (but only after she was recognized by the Nobel Prize committee), and she was an extremely dedicated teacher. Every little town in the Valley has a street of her name – probably the main street – and she has a school with her name and a playground with quotes from her poetry in Monte Grande. There’s a small museum with her personal effects in the town, but it’s two rooms and really nothing to see.

We stopped by the town/city of Vicuña as well. It’s the largest of the Elqui Valley and home base to some of the observatories in the area. Chile is apparently projected to have 60%+ of the world’s atrsonomy research by 2020 because of its clear skies – something that I could see very clearly in San Pedro de Atacama at night. Region 4, Coquimbo, has 10 observatories in itself, some touristic and some for actual scientific research. This prevalence is due both to the ideal climate for astronomical observation and its economic development, which allows it to host these observatories. Because Vicuña had renovations on its Plaza de Armas and main church as well, we weren’t able to really see it.

Before lunch, we stopped by a wine distillery. Like the pisco distillery, we were shown the processing techniques, along with the bottling that was done half by hand and half by machine that produces between 3000-4000 bottles of wine a day. Apparently, white wines should be drunk within a couple years, but purple wines can be stored for long periods of time. To let the wines sit, they leave them in various barrels of French Oak – which are divided into quality oak (for higher-quality wines) and regular oak (the difference being the processing of the wood). Like the pisco, these wines are not widely distributed to supermarkets and stores. I have long known that I like wine far less than other alcohols, but the sweet white wine was decent.

We finally stopped for lunch at the restaurant with solar kitchens! It’s the first of its kind, and definitely most artisanal. In summer, it takes about 45 minutes to cook a loaf of bread. In winter, it might take an hour and a half to two hours, but luckily they had our orders ready when we got there. What was most awesome about the “stove” was that the guy could hold a piece of paper at the center of the mirrors where the rays are concentrated and catch it on fire within seconds. It was simultaneously fascinating and scary. They also had ovens that work not on visible rays but rather with radiation, so they work even on cloudy days.

I had a chicken soup and some goat-ish meat and potatoes, and then a dessert that was a mix between pudding and tres leches cake. Quite good. I also got caught up a in a little conversation with the Spanish-speaking travelers and our guides, and of course the conversation of where I learned Spanish came up.  

I’m not sure whether I’m proud of the Spanish I know now or whether I’m still frustrated that I don’t know enough. Nevertheless, I got the impressed remarks of “Wow, you’re so brave to travel alone with no Spanish!” and the “You speak very well for only having learned it while traveling!” It feels good, I’m not going to lie. Still, almost three months feels like a lot to me, and I find myself getting frustrated when there’s something I don’t understand. In the long scheme of things, I guess it’s pretty good, but the world doesn’t care if I’ve only been learning and speaking for less than 3 months. It only cares whether I can speak or not.

The last viewpoint we crossed was the dam that we saw on our way there. It makes for quite a beautiful view, but unfortunately the water is only at 2% of its capacity. The dam, which was built just in 1996, reached a really high level at its 2004 maximum. This allowed people to do all kinds of tourism and water sports on the lake that formed, and made the relocation of the small town that used to be there worth it. However, in the years since, the Chilean mining of copper and other elements has used up a great deal of the water, leaving just the tiny bit still left today. Apparently it’s a controversial topic because mining has been so key to Chile’s economic development and its great standing today in relation to other countries in South America. It’s a really tough decision and would take a president/leadership really dedicated to protecting the environment to stop. Still, there’s already been a dam a little south of La Serena that is already completely dry due to mining activity. Maybe it’s a sign.

The last stop of the day was a little shop with lots of papaya products. The papaya tastes a lot different than what I’ve been used to in the US and in Bolivia, but Dad and I bought some juice and candy just to try. Overall, great day! Very pretty place, but the Elqui Valley isn’t as fantastic as some of the others that I’ve been to.

When Dad and I went to go buy bus tickets, we first tried to buy tickets with an automated machine. It wasn’t taking his credit card, so I asked the lady at the counter. Unfortunately, it doesn’t take credit cards of foreigners – what?! – and to buy from the counter costs an extra $1000 CLP. While that translates to roughly $1.50, I feel like that’s ridiculous! I mean, what the hell! Oh well.

While waiting for the bus (it leaves almost at 1 am because the drive to Valparaiso is only 5-6 hours), I took some time to check out the mall, which is right across the street from the bus terminal. It’s extremely nice and has all kinds of American products, as well as free bathrooms! Except for the Spanish, it felt like being in Lakeline Mall in Austin for a second. 

8/11-12/15: Dad's Arrival and Punto de Chorros

Dad arrived today! His flight wouldn’t arrive until 12:40, so I slept in and just chilled in the morning. Cristian (my Couchsurfing host in La Serena) lives only about 4 blocks to the airport, so I walked there to get Dad. I hadn’t looked at a map since yesterday morning, so got a little lost, but found the way before he got here.

We went to the city center to finish doing whatever there was left to do. We walked around, saw some of the markets, visited the Regional Museum with lots of artifacts from Easter Island – I definitely want to go the next time I’m in Chile.

There was also a tiny one-room gallery of religious art in the church off the Plaza de Armas that took us only about 10-20 minutes to get through.

Unfortunately, we weren’t able to book a tour to anywhere due again to the weather conditions, but one tour agent was nice enough to teach me how to get to Punto de Choros independently for tomorrow, so that’s our plan for tomorrow!

We went to the supermarket to buy some food for breakfast the next morning, and then walked into a restaurant for dinner!

To get to Punto de Choros, we were supposed to be waiting at the bus/micro station starting at 8:30. The bus was supposed to leave by about 9, maybe a little later (god knows it always leaves later than advertised). However, the bus didn’t arrive until about 9:10, and the minibus that came was way too small to fit everyone who wanted to go. The driver tried to explain to me that it wouldn’t be possible to go to Isla Damas – the island off the coast with penguins and wildlife that makes the town a tourist destination – but I explained to him that we’d already bored ourselves with the nothing that could be done in La Serena itself, and that we would just go and check it out. To accommodate everyone, we then got in a collectivo to this guy’s house, in front of which he had parked a small bus.

The bus ride there was longer than I had expected – about 2 hours – and when we got there indeed, no tourists expect us were there. With the extra time it had taken to get to the guy’s house (we didn’t leave until about 10), we only had 2 hours to walk around. Luckily, with no tourists around, we were able to walk around the coast and just enjoy the beauty there. The ocean at that point looks really gorgeous, and there are several large stones that we could climb and explore. The shore actually reminded me a lot of the shore that I explored with the other Global Brigades interns in Ghana last summer.

When we headed back to the main harbor, we checked out some of the seaweed-like plants that the fishermen had brought it. A couple of them approached us about going to Isla Damas. I told them what the tour agents (multiple of them) had told me – the conditions of the ocean weren’t good enough. Apparently, though, they were. But to go to the island required at least 8-10 people, depending on the person that told me the information, otherwise for just two it would cost almost $120. That’s a real shame, because I’m sure it would have been really great to see the animals. If the tour agents hadn’t kept saying that, I wonder if we would have been able to do the independent tour.

Still, I think the trip was worth it – the view from the beach is great! We also got to see some birds that were just flying around, and had the whole area to ourselves.

When we got back, we were finally able to book a tour to the Elqui Valley for tomorrow (I was worried because there had been some rain on the way to Punto de Choros), and we bought a rotisserie chicken from the supermarket to eat for dinner, along with two avocados. There hadn’t been much else to eat at restaurants – just the typical empanadas, hamburgers, completos (hot dogs with avocado, tomatoes, and mayonnaise), and chicken. What we did ended up being a lot cheaper and healthier, which was a win on both parts. 

8/9-10/15: Power Outage, Last Day Alone!

My last day in Antofagasta, I meant to go to La Portada. It’s a stone arch in the middle of the ocean about 30 minutes outside the city. It would cost a fortune by taxi (I already asked about public transportation and there is basically no information online), but I figured it might just be worth it. Upon waking up, though, I found that there had been pretty bad rains the night before and the power had gone out. That meant time to study some more Spanish, uninterrupted, but it also meant that I wouldn’t be able to contact my Couchsurfing host in La Serena. I tried to do some work while waiting for the power to come back on (I was hopeful – and it even came on for about 5 minutes, during which I was unable to do anything worthwhile) but I ended up waiting until late afternoon with no progress. Since there are apparently no buses directly to La Serena (most of them that stop there use it as a pit stop before going on to Santiago), it was time to go to the bus terminal before I knew it.

I took a collective (holla @ me!) to the bus terminal, but when I got there I was really confused. The lady at the counter told me to pay on the bus, so I followed an employee to the bus. She had given me a seat number but some other old couple came and claimed I was sitting in their seats. I was promptly moved to an aisle seat (don’t get me started on why I don’t like aisle seats), and the old lady sitting next to me turned out to be crazy – she didn’t even know what city we were in. What?

I was nervous because I hadn’t paid – and when I did, I wasn’t given a receipt. Luckily, there were no problems. Except that once we arrived, those of us going to La Serena were dropped off at a random intersection outside the city center. I had no clue at all where I was, or how to get anywhere. Luckily, it was already 7:30 am, meaning there was a gas station open across the street that I was able to ask. (On the other side, there was a Chuck E. Cheese’s!). I walked to the Plaza de Armas (really empty) and lamented the fact that nothing is open in South America before 9 am. It’s intensely frustrating. Not to mention that I had no phone, no address for my Couchsurf, and no information about a hostel should I need one. It was a great morning, but for some reason I was more annoyed than worried. I think that speaks a lot to the South American culture that I’ve absorbed over the last two and a half months plus.

Luckily, right around 8:50, I found a café with wifi (few and far between – most cafes don’t have wifi, and the one I went in to ask had an employee that was extremely rude to me, ugh). I finished the travel research on La Serena that I meant to do the day before (and would have had I had wifi), got the address of my Couchsurf, and let my laptop charge (it had died from the day without power before).

The Couchsurf is probably the worst conditions I’ve ever lived in – in South America or otherwise. It’s a little out of the city (accessible by collective), but the house is old and falling apart. He has a huge dog and two small ones, and a horse. He’s a surfer and has a room specifically for growing weed that he sells to his friends. LMAO. The room he has for Couchsurfers has a door that doesn’t quite close, and two beds for three people for tonight, four when Dad gets here. He’s going to have a blast.

I headed to the city in collective, which was miles cheaper than the taxi I had to take the first time. I stopped by a travel agency, but apparently, due to the rain, tours are not possible until maybe Wednesday or Thursday. There’s not a whole lot to do in the city, so hopefully the weather conditions clear up. Cities in northern Chile are unprepared like no other for any kind of precipitation (hence the power outage from the night before and this canceling of tours), so the timing of my arrival is basically the worst I could have picked, ever.

Nevertheless, I walked to a museum on a Chilean president, Gabriel Gonzalez Videla, which had a tiny bit of English that helped me get the gist of what was going on. Apparently, La Serena developed closely with another city, Coquimbo, which is the namesake of the region and just a couple miles south. Just walking around the city, I found several public transportation stops to Coquimbo and other surrounding towns.

I also walked by a little open market, a long strip of park, and the beach. They don’t really have a beach for swimming here, but there is a structure that looks like an abandoned lighthouse.

Since there wasn’t much else to do, I ate some dinner and headed back. I thought the collective worked the same as a taxi but with more than one passenger, but I was wrong. Apparently, they have little stops where people wait for collectivos (or collectivos wait for people) that are organized, at least to get from the city back to the suburbs. Oops.

At night, I was able to just chat with Cristian a little. He spent 10 years in Tuscon, Arizona 10 years ago, so his English is really great. He is also a sort of free spirit, who surfs and smokes and just opened a pizza shop a couple months ago. His friends and dad came to just hang out at night, and I chatted with them a little in the broken Spanish that I know. 

8/7-8/15: Resting in Antofagasta and italki

Since there is nothing else to do in the city except visit La Portada (a rock arch in the ocean, but with no public transportation and about 30 minutes away by car from the city), I ended up doing very little on Friday. I stayed in most of the day - it's a lot easier to justify this when living in an apartment than when paying for a hostel - and only went out at night to get food for dinner. It was nice though - I hadn't had one of those days since I missed my tours in San Pedro de Atacama, and I know I won't have days like those when Dad gets here. I used the time to study a lot of Spanish and catch up on some other work that I haven't done in a while.

I woke up on Saturday planning on spending the morning in the apartment and the afternoon at La Portada, which was working out pretty well. I read on Lonely Planet that apparently you can take a micro most of the way there and walk just 3 km (maybe 45 minutes) towards the site. I wanted to stop by the tourist information office and make sure, but when I got there it was already closed (I was late by about 20 minutes, apparently). I chickened out a little and tried to go into a hostel and ask, but they told me that I would have to take a taxi - there was no other way. The site is just too far. It was already pretty late by then, so I just gave up and walked towards the beach. I actually was able to stop by a little fish/food market, filled with stalls of all kinds of fresh fish and food stalls. I bought an empanada because I was hungry, and it turned out to be miles better than the sad one I had on my Salar de Tara tour in San Pedro de Atacama. It was fresh, fried, and nice and tasty.

On my way back, I stopped at a grocery store. I feel like the one here has more variety than the ones I went to in Bolivia (which makes sense). It even has poor college student food - like single serve ramen and cans of tuna and things like that. Awesome.

When I got back I started watching Dexter (it's kind of fantastic - and captures my attention and curiosity a lot more than Breaking Bad) and finally tried out italki.com. It's a language-learning tool that I've heard of for a while but never really thought to try, but I finally bit the bullet. It's great because it's founded on a community - native speakers and learners of all languages come together to converse with and teach each other. Since I already know some Spanish, it's a great way to practice! Apparently people are quite active on it, and I can pay people to teach me if I feel it's necessary. I  might in the future to learn more about verb tenses that I wasn't able to cover - like the conditional (I would do something) or the subjunctive (If I were to win the lottery). I have quite a ways to go before then, though.