Vacation: First Days in La Serena

The semester ended at school here, and I have two weeks of vacation. Originally the government wanted us volunteers to provide some kind of English winter camp during one week of the vacation, but when I talked to my director (principal) about it, he was against it. No staff or students will want to come, he said. So I get two weeks to explore Chile.

Sara and I decided to go north, partly because it's warmer. Sara is another volunteer, the one I spent the weekend with in Viña a couple weeks ago. The way to come north is to catch a bus, either from a bus station or on the road. It's cheaper to try and catch the bus on the bus route, but you never know if the bus will stop and so you don't know how long you're going to be waiting on the road. We decided to catch a bus to Santiago and buy a bus ticket at the bus station there--that we we knew we would have a ticket and a ride. We arrived in La Serena late last night and found a hostel close to the bus station and downtown.

La Serena is the second oldest city in Chile. It was founded in 1544 (or thereabouts) and is famous for the colonial architecture of the houses and the 39 churches from that era. It also has miles of beaches that we would frequent if it weren't one of the coldest months of the year. It was warmer than Santa María, though--we happily went around with only sweaters on. ¡Qué rico el sol!

Today we walked all over the place visiting plazas, shopping centers, the Archaeological Museum (where we saw one of the Maoi from Easter Island) and the beach. On the beach we rode horses next to the water. It was Sara's first time on a horse, and it was a little scary for her. But she's glad she did it.

The next couple of days we plan to go to the Elqui Valley and to the Nature Reserve to see the penguins. I will keep you posted on our adventures throughout the week.