La Serena

Hey guys.
Well we arrived in La Serena at quarter past five this morning. We waited around with a lot of other bleary-eyed people, until seven o'clock when we judged it to be a reasonable enough hour to look for our hostel. Found it without difficulty and before long we had pitched our tent like we'd been doing it for years.

success!

After breakfasting we went out to explore this place. It's much calmer and smaller than Valparaiso. And definitley cleaner! Really pretty. We visited the catherdral which was really lovely.

Then we walked to the beach, which is quite a way out of town but not too far. Lovely soft sand and quite cold water. There was a lighthouse which we thought looked like a lego building. I ended up lying on the sand having a nap because I was so tired. Amina ran up and down the beach as per usual. 

la playa

the Lego building

the water was freezing!

We had some funky Chilean food which was like a sausage roll but with more pastry and a hot dog sausage inside. They really like hot dog sausages here. I really miss normal sausages. It's either hot dog sausage, choripan which is kind of like chorizo, or some horrible thing that has big lumps of fat in it. 

In the afternoon we were walking around a market and you'll never guess what Amina bought. A drum. Yep. My peaceful summer is gone. I did tell her if she playedit  too much I'd hit her over the head with it. 

The people in our hostel are really friendly and we have had some great chat with them. Learned so much about Chile and Bolivia too.

Off to Chañaral tomorrow and then the parque Nacional Pan de Azucar. Camping for four nights. Should be fun :)