La serena
The past few days I've been in La serena, a beach town in northern Chile. I was only gone for 5 days, but it seems like a lot longer given all the things that happened in that short of time. We got back to Valparaíso last night, just in time for the Fiestas Patrias celebrations. The Fiestas Patrias are Chile's Independence day, and people traditionally get together with family, have barbecues, drink a lot, and dance the national dance, "la cueca". We went to hear Inti-Illimani and some cumbia and salsa bands play on the pier in Valparaíso.
Anyways, the time in La serena was packed but totally and completely enjoyable. Looking back over my pictures its kind of bizarre how many interesting but completely unrelated things we did.
First, we went to the Valle de Elqui, which is famous for its dry, dramatic, mountains. Hippies go there because supposedly it has a "magnetic energy"(whatever that means) and nutty people go there because supposedly there are UFO's. Anyways, it was really beautiful. Nobel-prize winning poet Gabriel Mistral is from a little town near here, and we went to see her house.
Higher up in the Valle de Elqui...everything seems to be coated in dust here.
We had lunch at Restaurante Solar Villaseca. These little boxes are solar cookers that reach 180* C. The Chilean government along with environmental organizations have encouraged the use of solar cookers in this town since people are poor and firewood basically non-existant. The sun is scorching here.
Valle de Elqui is also home to the Mamalluca astronomical observatory. I'm not sure why, but this part of Chile has some of the clearest skies in the world. It was nearly full moon when we were there, which was bad for seeing stars and planets. I did get this cool picture of the moon though, through one of their fancy telescopes!
On Friday, a smaller group of us went by boat to Isla Damas, an island in the Pacific a few hours from La serena. We saw dolphins (amazingly beautiful), penguins, sea lions, and lots of cold, gray, windblown landscape. I would put my dolphin and penguin pictures online, given how fast they moved and how well camoflouged they are, the pictures aren't very exciting :-)
Mariah, Jessica, and Kristin compare sea-shells.
A beautiful white sand beach on a cold, cold day.
Wild Llamas, "Guayaca," in the desert on the way home from Isla Damas.
Carla, Mariah, Jessica, Kristin and I spent an extra day in La serena itself. As the second oldest city in Chile, it has really beautiful colonial architecture and churches. Kristin said it reminded her of Spain.
Carla, Me, Kristin, Jessica. Mariah's taking the picture.
Anyways, the time in La serena was packed but totally and completely enjoyable. Looking back over my pictures its kind of bizarre how many interesting but completely unrelated things we did.
First, we went to the Valle de Elqui, which is famous for its dry, dramatic, mountains. Hippies go there because supposedly it has a "magnetic energy"(whatever that means) and nutty people go there because supposedly there are UFO's. Anyways, it was really beautiful. Nobel-prize winning poet Gabriel Mistral is from a little town near here, and we went to see her house.
Higher up in the Valle de Elqui...everything seems to be coated in dust here.
We had lunch at Restaurante Solar Villaseca. These little boxes are solar cookers that reach 180* C. The Chilean government along with environmental organizations have encouraged the use of solar cookers in this town since people are poor and firewood basically non-existant. The sun is scorching here.
Valle de Elqui is also home to the Mamalluca astronomical observatory. I'm not sure why, but this part of Chile has some of the clearest skies in the world. It was nearly full moon when we were there, which was bad for seeing stars and planets. I did get this cool picture of the moon though, through one of their fancy telescopes!
On Friday, a smaller group of us went by boat to Isla Damas, an island in the Pacific a few hours from La serena. We saw dolphins (amazingly beautiful), penguins, sea lions, and lots of cold, gray, windblown landscape. I would put my dolphin and penguin pictures online, given how fast they moved and how well camoflouged they are, the pictures aren't very exciting :-) 
Mariah, Jessica, and Kristin compare sea-shells.
A beautiful white sand beach on a cold, cold day.
Wild Llamas, "Guayaca," in the desert on the way home from Isla Damas. 
Carla, Mariah, Jessica, Kristin and I spent an extra day in La serena itself. As the second oldest city in Chile, it has really beautiful colonial architecture and churches. Kristin said it reminded her of Spain. 
Carla, Me, Kristin, Jessica. Mariah's taking the picture.
posted by Julia | 12:51 PM
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