1-21 Coquimbo & La Sarena, Chile

1-21 Day 16 Coquimbo & La Serena, Chile

The priest on board the ship has been organizing some group tours, and Bob (new friend from Louisiana) had told us about this and asked us to join them in this port. And so we did. The ship's excursion for the trip we took charged $79 per person and did not include some of the things we saw. Our tour cost us (with tip) $35 per person. I love these great bargains, and the trip is really more of an adventure. Our group for today consisted of 10 passengers and our guide, who was from Australia.

First we explored the port town of Coquimbo which is rather small and a very typical port town. We drove out to the old fort where the Spaniards watched out for pirates. They had a high vantage point so they could see them coming from several directions, and with their cannons were able to attack them. They have modernized the area now with street lamps and a cafe.

Coquimbo sits on a hillside and there are narrow, windy streets going up the hillside. We headed up to see the famous Millenium Cross that can be seen anywhere from town and the bay area. The homes on the way up represented middle and poorer class people. To us, it seemed to be more of the latter. Some of the homes looked like shanties made of corrugated metal. Others were a bit nicer – but not much. There is a main street area with shops, but that was just opening up as we went by.

Near the top of the hillside, we arrived at the cross. It was put up in 2000 (thus called the Millenium Cross.) It reminded me a bit of the St. Louis arch in that you can take an elevator up to the “arms” of the cross and look out all over the city and bay area. We did not do that, but instead climbed the steps to the chapel that is at the bottom of the cross. The roof was all concrete and the interior was rather simple. In one part of the entrance there was a copy of Michelangelo's statue of the Mary holding Jesus across her lap. (the name of it is slipping my mind at the moment) . When back outside, you really could see across the bay at the town of La Serena. Unfortunately, we had an overcast day, so it was harder to see. On a clear day you can see the lighthouse and the Mosque (the only one in the town). But even without the sun, it was a great view of the city below.

From there we made our way down and out of town toward the much prettier town of La Serena. Our guide goes to the University there and had planned to show us a great view from a spot on campus, but because of the fog, we would not have been able to see anything. So, we headed straight into the town. It has a huge mall and many stores. While it is more a place that people come for vacation because of the beach, it has all the amenities one would need to live there. La Serena means “peaceful” and with all the parks in the city, it seemed just that.

We stopped at a park, took pictures of a fountain that had won an art contest, and then went into the Cathedral of Serena which faced this park. No pictures were allowed, but we able to take a picture from the main door looking into the church. The most interesting thing was a crypt on the floor that held the bodies of bishops.

From the cathedral, we walked several blocks to the La Recova handicraft market. The architecture was very interesting – a colonial style for the most part. We passed lots of little shops and stores. La Recova is an area for local handicrafts and caters mainly to the tourists – although we saw many locals shopping as well. Besides lots of the typical souvenirs, they sold food products, mainly papaya. While we were there, some musicians played while a young girl in costume danced. It was a pleasant experience.

After that we went to the Archeological Museum to see artifacts from the Diaguita and Molle cultures. While it was a fairly small museum, it was wonderful, and I could have spent a lot more time there. One of the main attractions is an original Moai sculpture from Easter Island. It was about 12 feet tall and about 5-6 feet wide. It was the head and chest of one of these statues that were found on Easter Island, but that no one has been able to explain where they came from or who made them. In addition to this, we saw more mummies (more detailed than the previous ones we saw) and skeletons that were found in the area. We took lots of pictures since we didn't have time to really spend time at the different exhibits. Also, all the descriptions were in Spanish, so we're hoping to get someone to translate it for us when we get home.

On the way back to the ship, we went to the beach and saw what many people come to this town for. We stopped at the place where the Old Lighthouse stands (no longer used.) While the beach is long and wide in many places, the sand is not a pretty white color, and no one was in the water because it was much too cold. As we drove further down on the Ocean Road, we saw lots of little restaurants and condos across from the water. By this time it had cleared up, so we could easily see the Cross across the bay (La Herradura de Guaycan Bay) and our ship docked in front of it. Made a great picture.

It was a fun outing and we saw and learned more about this area. But we were glad to be back at the ship because it was getting later and we were getting hungry. So, after a quick lunch, we went back to our cabin and took a nap (guess all the fresh air makes us more tired.) Had dinner with our regular group of 8 and then went to the ship's show. It was quite good – a combo of some of the previous entertainers. We had only seen the soprano who sang arias, but were delighted to hear her again because she was so good. We also saw a group called LiveWire (a guitar player and violin player), and they were really good – we were sorry we had missed their full show. The other entertainer was a harmonica player, and while that sounded somewhat lame, he was very good. We just didn't really like his selection of music.

All in all, it was a fun day. We were told before retiring that the ship would be tossing around a bit in 10 foot waves. We found it to be smoothing enough to rock us to sleep!