A Boy Named Sue - Johnny Cash

Hmm, not the greatest coach ride from Santiago to La Serena, Chile´s third largest city. We arrived at the coach station at Santiago about 8am, and within about 3 minutes Ash, our tour leader, had had her daypack swiped by some thieving sod. It had her laptop, camera, iPod and about US$4000, so she wasn´t happy. And then about 3 hours into the journey, the transmission on our coach, which had been making some strange noises, packed up terminally. So we had to wait for other buses with spare space to come by and pick us up from the side of the highway.

Anyway, made it in the end. There´s not a great deal to do or see in La Serena itself, so a few of us made the 3-hour trek up the coast to do some whale watching. Or as it transpired, whale searching. We went out in a 10-man boat that looked like something out of Moby Dick, but couldn´t find so much as a spurt of water in 2 hours. However, all was not lost as we did get a school of dolphins playing alongside the boat, and also saw sea otters, sealions, an elephant seal, pelicans and penguins. So I reckon we probably got our 28,000 pesos worth there (about 28 quid).

There´s also a big observatory nearby where regular punters can go along and look through a big telescope at Orion´s Belt, the Northern Cross, Saturn etc. Actually more interesting than it sounds, helped by the fact that lack of light pollution means Chile gets some spectacular starscapes.

Hopefully a less stressful trip to San Pedro de Atacama tomorrow, though it´s an overnight bus which doesn´t bode well. A few of our tour group did an overnight bus in Brazil that got hijacked. Fingers crossed...

written by

phileasdogg on February 7, 2009 from La Serena, Chile

from the travel blog: Planes, Trains & Taxiwallahs

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