The view from Lucy's apartment's balcony. Nice.
La Serena is known for being a beach resort town, but since we visited during mid-winter, the weather wasn't quite right for getting bronzed. It was still clear and sunny, which was a pleasant change from the weather in Talca, so one day we walked down to the beach. The first picture looks across the bay to La Serena's neighboring city of Coquimbo. A generally more industrial town, Coquimbo is not considered a tourist destination. Sam and I did visit it for an afternoon, mostly to go up the Third Millenium Cross(but more on that later).
The view from La Serena's beach across the bay to Coquimbo.
The view down the beach. What appears to be a lighthouse on the left side of the picture isn't. It's just a sort've cool towery thingy.
During our handful of days in La Serena, Lucy's apartment became headquarters for a squad of gringos(ourselves included) heading various directions on their travels. As we arrived, Lucy was just coming back from the North with Tim, an Argentine ETA, and Andra(Concepcion ETA) and her boyfriend Andy got there a few days before us. Matt(another Talcan ETA) arrived a few days afterwards as did Sade(Valparaiso ETA) and her boyfriend Selvin. Which leads up to the picture below. Sylvan is from Honduras and knows how to make phenomenal tortillas. So he tried to teach us how to make them. Fairly successfully, too.
Lucy, Selvin, Sade, Yours Truly, and Mateo making tortillas.
Sam and I decided we needed to visit Coquimbo, mostly to see and see the view from the top of the Third Millennium Cross, Coquimbo's pride and joy. However, outsiders generally seem to think it an architectural horrorshow, an ugly blot on the skyline. It is a massive structure on the highest point of the hills of Coquimbo. One elevator runs up the middle of the cross. No emergency stairs were available to get down, though a picture in the museum under the cross of the Pope blessing a picture of the cross was comforting in that regard. Constructed during the turn of the millennium, this structure is described by the Rough Guide to Chile in these glowing terms: "the only conceivably redeeming feature is that you can enjoy superb panoramic views of the coast from up here." The guidebook takes a few other pointed jabs at the cross' aesthetics during its Coquimbo section. Guidebooks can often be so unfailing in their praise that it was great to read a sentence like the one above. I had to know: is it really that ugly? And are the views redeeming? Check out the pictures below and you can decide for yourself.
Looking back downhill on the way up to the Third Millennium Cross
Drawing closer to the cross.
In all Its hideous glory.
Agghhhh! The incredible ugliness! But really, it does look both unfinished and prison-like.
Agghhhh! The incredible ugliness! But really, it does look both unfinished and prison-like.
The redeeming feature of the cross.
The city streets below the cross.
Looking back across the bay.
Looking back across the bay.
Down on the Waterfront in Coquimbo.
Vicuna, about an hour east of La Serena in the mountains, is home to a few world-class astronomy observatories and one giant pisco plant. Pisco is a fierce brandy made in Chile and Peru(both claim that they invented it and that the other's version of pisco totally sucks). We visited Vicuna hoping to take a nighttime observatory tour but it was cloudy in a place renowned for its constant sunshine and clear skies, so we went to the pisco plant instead.
Welcome to Piscoville.
Next Post: Further North!
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