Apr 6, 2005 - La Serena and the famous Chilean stars

"There can be no better land to live in than this one," Pedro de Valdivia, letter from Chile to Charles V of Spain, 1545. The seven-hour trip north from Santiago to La Serena had decent views (vineyards giving way to desert). I finished read the entire Bolivia chapter in my guidebook and made a rough plan of my time in Bolivia. I spent a few nights in a twin room with Jordan, a young Canadian and we ended up traveling together for a few days. We walked around the city's center the next day and by pure coincidence, found ourselves in the...

Apr 1, 2005 - Chile - La Serena

From Santiago we take a coach as Kinda the truck is still poorly and soon have the party feel as we are of to the sun and coast! We drive past endless vineyards and follow the snow capped spine of the Andes to La Serena. The temperatures are now starting to climb back up to what one normally associates with time away...though we know it will be short-lived. In the town we visit the Museo Arqueologico which reveals strange visions...shrunken heads from Equador, Atacama mummies and the highlight is of a moai from Easter Island (Rapa...

Mar 24, 2005 - La Serena...Oh How it Reminds me of Cuenca, Ecuador!

We arrived in La Serena pretty late, but luckily a man on the street offered us some help in locating a hostel-which he did. The funniest thing, was that he had spent many years in Australia and had aquired an Aussie accent...A spanish man with an aussie accent...frickin hilarious, it was hard for me not to laugh! Mike was really excited about La Serena, mostly because we arrived during a little storm, but the atmosphere there is really cool and the people here are very friendly. We did the old tourity thing here and bought postcards,...

Mar 19, 2005 - La Serena

A horrendous 7 hour bus journey north, seated next to the toilet, no air conditioning and tinny spanish blasting out of the video, which even my Walkman full volume couldn´t drown out. La Serena, pretty enough town. Hired a car to explore the area. Dry desert mountains, with lush green valleys, miles of vineyards that provide the grapes to the pisco distilleries. Oh and we drank plenty of that. We stayed a couple of nights in an expensive German run hacienda (lots of exclamation marked rules again, what is it with the Germans why can´t...

Feb 8, 2005 - La Serena

Tuesday 8th Feb. dawned with us both looking foward to our long awaited Pachamama journey north to the township of San Pedro de Atacama located in the Atacama Desert in Northern Chile. After clearing the outskirts of Santiago many market gardens on the flats adjacent to the road could be seen growing vegetables like tomatoes, lettuces, melons as well as groves of fruit trees. Santisgo is located in a valley surrounded by steep hills and mountains; it is actually quite amazing to see produce growing sometimes up to half-way up the...

Jan 31, 2005 - Santiago - La Serena

Liebe Freunde, Seit dem letzten Mail bin ich nur gerade ca. 1'300km weitergerkommen. Nun, der Grund ist, dass Jan. & Feb. Regenzeit in Bolivien ist und ich ausserdem noch Besuchstermine in den ESO Observatorien La Silla & Paranal habe. Doch dazu spaeter. Meine Zeit in Santiago war leider von einem sehr negativen Vorfall ueberschattet. Man hatte mir im "Instituto-Chileno-Suizo" in meiner Abwesenheit aus dem dort zurueckgelassenen Gepaeck saemtliche Kleider gestohlen. Noch schlimmer als dieser Umstand war aber die Reaktion des Schweizer...

Dec 25, 2004 - Christmas in Santiago

After a day in the port city of Valpariaso, we enjoyed Christmas Day in 80 degrees by lounging at the pool and having brunch at "Starlight Coffee" (do not tell Starbucks). Christmas greetings to our family and friends! We miss you all. A small world story you may enjoy...at the beginning of our Antarctica travels, we met a really interesting couple, Elliott and Cathy. Well, it turns out that we had met them before, and on multiple occasions -- they are from Saratago Springs, NY (Eric´s hometown) and are family friends with Ed Powers (Eric´s...

Nov 25, 2004 - La Serena

We´re now in La Serena. We got in last night (after 15h on the bus) and haven´t had a look around yet, but as soon as we got off the internet we´ll go and have a look. We´re hoping to have some beach time on one of the many beaches, however we have to decide whether it´s warm enough. It´s sunny enough, but right now it doesn´t really feel like beach warm. We´ll tell you more about this place later, so keep an eye on this entry. Anna & Peter Back again and now we´re waiting to get all our photos burnt on a CD, so have some time left over...