We spent about 4 days in La Serena, a nice town right by the ocean that apparently gets really crowded with people from Santiago in the summer months but was still quiet when we were there.
One of the nights we went to ´Mamalluca´, an amateur observatory which was pretty spectacular. We´ve been told that Chile is one of the best places in the world to observe stars due to the almost perfect sky conditions (clear atmosphere, low humidity etc.)
Unfortunately my camera started acting all weird just when we got there, so no pictures! :( There´s something wrong with the CCD-sensor, a manufacturing defect on some Canon cameras. I found out after a couple of days that when I slam it really hard it starts working again - so that´s my new technique until I´ll get back to Germany and try getting it replaced ;)
Apart from that we went on a tour through Valle de Elqui, famous for its Pisco (typical Chilean liquor made out of grapes) and wine. We got to check out a Pisco factory and a really cute little vineyard (tasting all the different types included). The wine here is so cheap too! It´s great to be able to get a really nice bottle for only about 4€!
Eventually we decided to try and make our way down south to Santiago by hitchhiking and it wasn´t as hard as I expected it to be! After only 20 minutes of waiting we hitched a ride with a really nice guy in his truck: a bumpy 6-hour drive but really nice views of the Chilean coast! He even gave us his number and offered to give us a lift all the way down to Patagonia but we ended up buying a flight instead since it would have been another 30 hours.
We´re staying here in Santiago with the family of Nigel´s sister´s boyfriend and it´s sooooo nice to finally be in a place that has a clean bathroom after a long time of traveling and staying in crappy and disgusting hostels. It starts getting on your nerves after a while when every time you take a shower you struggle with trying not to touch the walls, shower curtain or other disgusting things in a dirty bathroom covered with other people´s hair.
Santiago is also fun cause we got in touch with some friends of friends (thanks Julie for the Eddie-hookup!) that know their way around the city and took us out on the weekend. And in general it´s just a really nice and laid back city despite it´s size.
We saw a group of people dancing in a park to drums, felt a bit like the South American Loveparade version, but was cool to watch.
We´re just planing our trip to Patagonia now and then hop on the plane to get down there in a couple of days. The 19 days of trekking are gonna be tough, especially after lazing around for such a long time... but I´m excited and really looking forward to it!
2 comments:
can't you simply get a new camera somewhere? i am going to miss those pics a bit.
also: don't miss the chance of finding a trustful shaman for some enlightning Ayahuasca - experience, but beware - "no es broma", as they say.
cheers
The camera was still working fine... til yesterday when we got robbed!!! And now it's gone :(
I´ll write more about it in my next post.
And no... I can´t simply get a new one here since I don't quite have a couple of hundred extra $ that I can just spend like that! Chile is way too expensive for my budget.
Oh well! I still have my manual camera. I'll have a photostore put the pics on a CD when I get the roll developed. So there will be pictures still - it's just gonna take a bit longer...
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