Desert Rain

Last Thursday I headed north with some friends. We headed to La Serena, Chile's second oldest city after Valparaiso. Although the city itself wasn't supposed to be a big tourist draw, it is close to several quite interesting sites such as a penguin reserve, Chile's major pisco valley and quite a few of the world's largest telescopes. Our plan to visit these attractions went down the drain when the weather decided that last weekend would be the perfect time for La Serena to receive it's monthly inch of rain. The tour of the penguins islands was a off for fear of boats capsizing (although whenever the sun shone the tour agencies told us it would be fine, these people must not check weather forecasts), and we obviously couldn't view the far reaches of the universe through the clouds. So here's what we did do...

We began Friday very positively, enjoying La Serena's colonial-style buildings over a deliciously yummy breakfast. Flavored hot chocolate anyone? After visiting the vineyards of Pisco Elqui, we returned to the hostel for the best part of the day: preparing an amazing spaghetti with garlic break for ourselves. It was awesome and included flaming bread.



Initially we hoped to go see penguins on Saturday, but when that didn't turn out well we explored La Serena. Their Japanese Gardin is supposed to be very relaxing and beautiful, but was... closed. Like everything else, right? However, we did stumble upon a free zoo with ostrichs and condors and giant tortoises and chickens, as well as a very random herd of billy goats, sheep and llamas that were just walking around a bunch of jungle gyms. Not fenced in, just walking around. And in the evening we went to a circus! To end the day we spent a few hours chilling in a restaurant. We ordered a variety of chocolatey treats--hot chocolate, ice cream and a milkshake-- and mixed them all up to make our own "mixed" beverages.