Valle del Elqui

Not only did I finally make it to La Serena, but I also made it to Valle del Elqui! As I mentioned in my previous post, Valle del Elqui was chosen by Lonely Planet as one of their top destinations to visit in 2019, so I was very excited to visit it.

The main town in the valley is called Vicuña (like the animals in the Atacama Desert!). It's easy to know when you've arrived there, because it has those big letters like Coquimbo and La Serena do!

Opposite the letters, there's a cool sculpture of a dragon!

The poet Gabriela Mistral was born in Vicuña, and one of the town's main attractions is a museum about her life. We couldn't visit as it was closed due to the protests, but we had had a look around the market and the Plaza de Armas, where you can see the Torre Bauer. We also found a very good vegetarian restaurant called Govinda's to have lunch in. I'm a long-term vegetarian, recently turned vegan, and I haven't always found it easy to find vegetarian and vegan food in Chile. So it was a nice surprise to find a place like that!

On the way to our next destination, we had some really nice views over the valley.

The next place we visited was the small village of Montegrande, where we visited the house in which Gabriela Mistral grew up.

Finally, we visited the village of Pisco Elqui. It's named after Pisco, the national drink of Chile, which is made in Valle del Elqui.

On the drive back, we stopped at Paihuano for some more photos with big letters!

Valle del Elqui was a really beautiful and unique place to visit. As well as being famous because of Gabriela Mistral and Pisco, it's also famous for its observatories. However, all the observatories in the area were closed to visitors when we were there. So we definitely have an excuse to go back in the future!

Coquimbo

I haven't blogged for a week because I've been a bit busy with other things. Last weekend I found out that I'm now officially a qualified teacher of English as a foreign language! So I've made a new CV and got my first job application sent off.

But now I've got some time to blog, and I'm going to write about the city of Coquimbo. Before going there, I thought Coquimbo was just the name of the region, so it was interesting to find out that it was also the name of a city on the coast right next to La Serena.

On the beach, there are big letters like the ones in La Serena. As you'll see in my next post, they are very common in this region!

However, the centre of the city is very different to the centre of La Serena. Unfortunately, one noticeable difference is that it's not as affluent. The other big difference is that it's built on very steep hills. With its colourful houses, it looks quite a lot like Valparaíso.

I was surprised to see that there was a mosque in Coquimbo, as there isn't a big Muslim population in Chile. It's called Centro Cultural Mohamed VI and it was a gift from the king of Morocco. On the evening of the day we arrived, we drove up to the top of the hill where it's situated. We didn't get out to look around, because the area didn't seem entirely safe. But we got a decent view of the building from the car the next morning.

The other major landmark in Coquimbo is also a religious one. La Cruz del Tercer Milenio is a huge cross on top of a hill, that can be seen from La Serena. You can take a lift up to the top to see views of the whole city.

We were lucky to meet an especially cute resident of Coquimbo at the cross!

Coquimbo is a very interesting city to visit, as it has both unique cultural landmarks and a great beach. It also offers many impressive views from the top of the city and from below.

Next I'll be writing about our trip through Valle del Elqui, a valley in the Coquimbo region which was chosen by Lonely Planet as one of the top ten travel destinations for 2019!

La Serena

So I finally got to go to La Serena after trying to go three times before! It's a bit of a long story, but when I was studying in Chile, I reserved a place on a tour to La Serena and Valle del Elqui, which was cancelled and moved to the following month. Then when I tried to confirm my place on the new tour (as well as on another tour to the Atacama desert) the company were completely useless. Every time I contacted them, they said they would get back to me, but they never did. I never paid anything, so it was their loss! Coincidentally, on the weekend when the tour was supposedly taking place, some of the people I went with to Algarrobo for the first time were planning to go to La Serena too. Once I realised I wasn't getting anywhere with the tour company, I wanted to join their trip, but I think by then they'd given up on the idea. So I ended up visiting Viña del Mar instead.

But I'm very lucky, because I got to go to the Atacama desert in January and now I've also been to La Serena, Coquimbo and Valle del Elqui, thanks to my amazing boyfriend! He drove us there and back and all around the area, which was a lot of driving, because it takes at least six hours to get there from Santiago. So, Claudio, if you're reading this, I have a message for you: eres el más bacán! 💗

One of the first things you see when you arrive in the city are the big letters that are great for photos!

A short distance away is the lighthouse, the best known landmark in La Serena.

After we arrived, we looked for a cheap place to stay and found a really nice little apartment by the sea.

That afternoon, we went to the beach to swim in the sea, which was a bit crazy, because the water was really cold. But it wasn't as freezing as the sea in England, so it was fun for me!

The next day, we went to look around the city centre. There's a Japanese garden there that we wanted to visit, but it was closed, probably because of the protests. Through a gap in the fence, it looked liked a bigger version of the one in Santiago.

La Serena is the fourth biggest city in Chile, so the centre is quite big with a lot of interesting architecture, which I found out is neocolonial in style.

I really enjoyed visiting La Serena at long last, and I would definitely go back!

In my next post, I'll be writing about Coquimbo, a city right next to La Serena but different in many ways.