Okay, more detail? Sure. From Santiago I took a bus north to the city of La Serena. It's only a seven hour trip, so not bad. A word on the bus system in South America: fantastic. Trains are uncommon, if not nonexistent, so the buses have to be good. In most instances, there are two grades of seating--what in Chile are known as and cama and semi-cama, literally bed and semi-bed. Cama is to bussing what business class is to flying, and for the longer trips, it's absolutely worth it.
There aren't a lot of specific spots for tourism in La Serena. It is the second oldest city in Chile, after Santiago, and houses almost two dozen churches. The nearby city of Coquimbo erected the Millenium Cross in 2000, a giant monument to South American Christianity. It stands on a hill and is over 270 feet tall, made almost entirely of concrete (a very common building material there). Elevators inside the cross take people up to the arms, where they can walk out and get probably the best view of the area. On my first day in La Serena, I rented a bike along with two others from the hostel and pedaled my way (probably about 5 miles or so) out along the beach and up a very steep hill to arrive at the cross. I don't imagine there was much in the way of breaks left on those bikes after the trip back down. It's a spectacular view from the top, and the cities and ocean spread out before you.
Most of the rest of my time was spent wandering about, or sitting in the mall, drinking coffee and people watching and reading. I did see Public Enemies, finally. Most movies are in English, subtitled in Spanish. Except on buses. Frustrating. The city is home to a lot of very old churches, so I wandered and found a few of them. They were churches. There is an archaeological museum in the city. It was small, but had some interesting exhibits, including human remains on two occasions. At one point, I ran across a group of street performers playing swing and jazz. They were pretty good, and I enjoyed watching them for awhile. There was no one dancing, though. On my last full day there, I met a group of students from Concepcion in the hostel. We were all headed out to el Valle del Elqui, which is the primary pisco producing region in Chile. Unfortunately, I was unable to do the two things that I would have most liked to have done: the tour of the pisco factory and the tour of the observatory. It's quite beautiful in that region, and the little town of Vicuña is very quaint. I certainly had an enjoyable day, but to have taken the observatory tour would have meant missing my bus back to La Serena.
The next day, I hopped on the bus to head north for San Pedro de Atacama.
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