La Serena

Hedge behind the bus terminal in La Serena

 

 

 

Whoever named this town of (supposedly - there seem to be nowhere close to this amount) more than 200,000 people hit the nail on the head. It seems indeed serene, calm, unhurried even to the traveller passing through. 

We arrived here very early in the afternoon yesterday after a sixteen-hour bus ride from San Pedro de Atacama – of which I must have slept about twelve. Cama seats are indeed a worthwhile luxury for such long trips; it is wonderful to have so much leg room, such comfortable seats. Much of the trip was in the dark, but when I first woke in the morning it seemed that I wouldn't have missed much along the way even if I had been awake. There seems to be little that's alive in this landscape. I closed my eyes again, only to wake some time later to a landscape obliterated by fog. We had to be getting close: La Serena, Chile's second oldest city, lies right on the Pacific, so here moist pacific and dry inland air were meeting and mixing. Slowly the fog lifted somewhat and revealed hillsides somewhat greener, crowded with a different kind of cactus, like the cardones much higher up just starting to bloom.

Still a 'travel unit' with Alex and Kristina, we found rooms at the first hostel where we stopped, not even half a kilometre from the bus stop. Walking uphill is no hardship anymore, now that the altitude is no longer a factor - and what a relief for skin, hair and the respiratory system to feel the humid air of the coast! The 'El Punto' hostel is yet another in a series of hostels with nice rooms facing courtyards with blooming plants in big pots or creeping up walls painted in vivid colours. It is a hostel obviously preferred by Europeans, especially Germans – hardly anyone speaks anything else, and even the hostel staff is fluent in German. It feels strange to us, so unused to it during our travels. Chile seems to be a preferred country for Germans, maybe because it is so clean and safe.

We didn't do a whole lot here during our stay: we went downtown (just as unhurried as the surrounding area) and this evening walked for about half an hour along the main avenue, the Avenida Francisco de Aguirre, to the beach. The temperature is moderate, maybe in the low twenties, a marked difference to the heat in San Pedro, and very few people were swimming, though surfers in neoprene suits were enjoying the waves.

Tomorrow we will take the last bus: only six hours are left to Santiago, where we will stay in the same hostel we started. Soon, very soon, we will exchange summer for winter again.It is also time to say good-bye to our travel companions. We shared a great time with them, and especially Johann was happy to find someone to play cards with while I wrote blog and postcards. We will miss them; it's not often that such an easy relationship develops in such a short time, especially with people half one's age. 

I am fully aware that there are still two days missing from the Uyuni adventure, and I hope to post a blog entry or two about that before we go home.