Mendoza, Argentina

Mendoza - our last stop before returning to Santiago and sending MB back on her way to the states. Kind of sad, but Mendoza is such a gorgeous city it wasn't hard to have a great time. We made friends with some German brothers on our bus ride in and by the time we left picked up some obnoxious German accents. Which sounded nothing like the brothers, but we thought it was hilarious. We also drank some wine. Well, maybe "some" is too light of a term.

5. Parrilla: So as you know Argentina is really famous for meat, but after traveling in the country for about two weeks, MB and I still hadn’t really partaken in that much meat eating. So on our last day in Mendoza (after the hot springs, see number one) we stopped for a nice lunch with the Germans (see number three) at a classic Argentinian Parrilla (grill). The meal included delicious meat empanadas and our table’s own personal mini-grill that came out covered in meat – sausage, ribs, steak, etc. Little bit of an overdose in the protein department, but totally worth it.

4. Ceviche to go: On our second night in Mendoza, we’d made plans with the Germans to play poker at their hostel instead of going out since they were pooped from the night before (again, see number three). They’d told us that they would provide the alcohol if we provided the cards and some food. But after getting back from wine touring, we were a. tired b. dirty (and bleeding, see number two) and needed to shower and c. drunk. That being said, by the time we’d showered and dressed we had about 20 minutes to find said food, and because it was late all the stores were closed, so we hopped down to a Peruvian restaurant the lady at our hostel had suggested and looked on the menu to get something to go. The only thing that seemed even somewhat appropriate to bring for snacking was ceviche, which we ordered, popped in a plastic bag and took off with. We grabbed some crackers at a gas station on the way, and viola: creepy raw fish in a bag with crackers equals the perfect poker snack, right? Actually, right. It turned out to be really really good, and we went back the next night for more. Winnahs.

In the plaza a few days later. Much happier.

3. Ditched in the park/ice cream: On our 12-hour bus ride from Buenos Aires to Mendoza, we’d sat behind two German brothers (Martin and Billy) and chatted with them for most of the bus ride. When we all got off in Mendoza, we went our separate ways to our different hostels but made plans with them to meet up again for drinks that night at 10pm in the main plaza in Mendoza. I told them the plaza was really big though, so maybe we should pick a certain corner or something, but they assured us “no no, don’t worry, we’ll find you.” So MB and I wandered around the city and the park for most of the day and then after dinner headed over to the plaza around 10pm. Again, it is a really really big plaza, and it also happened to be packed with people that night, so we decided the most logical place to be was around the center. Around 10:30pm we still hadn’t seen them so did a few rounds around the plaza, then waited in the middle again. Around 11pm we decided there was no way they were still there and feeling sad we walked down the street and got ice cream. Which actually turned out to be incredibly delicious ice cream and totally worth being ditched in a park. Sad as it may seem though from this description, the next day while we were biking around wine tours, we ended up passing them and apparently they’d been at the park till 11:30pm waiting for us (thinking we’d ditched them) and we all laughed about it and spent the next two and a half days together. Which also meant that MB and I could perfect our German accent (in English), which may have been really annoying to them, but was beyond hilarious to us. We also learned what an ear worm was.

2. Wine Country: In Chile we’d toured the pisco valley, so in Argentina it seemed only right to tour the wine country. On our second day in Mendoza we took a public bus out to the Maipu (yeah, maipu, not yourpu) Valley and rented a pair of bikes – MB wouldn’t let me get us a tandem bike, something about us being too clumsy, ha – and took off. We rode for a while down to one winery that had been recommended for lunch and had a romantic meal (typical) and split a bottle of red wine. After some fantastic tiramisu (and that bottle of wine) we were feeling pretty good and hopped back on the bikes to head to another vineyard. On the way we were chatting and giggling (surprise!) and ended up crossing paths with the German brothers and a German friend of theirs (Ferdy) and they went with us to the next winery where… Mary Beth and I split another bottle of red wine. Apparently that is our new thing. So after being there a while (it was rather gorgeous) we hopped back on the bikes to head back in the direction of the rental place with plans to stop at maybe one more vineyard. Unfortunately, MB and I were chatting and giggling again, and somehow the wine had made us a little unsteady… and before we knew it we had crashed into each other and then down onto the road. MB managed to get off with not too many bruises, but I got some nasty scrapes on my leg(s), hip and arm. Very graceful. So it turns out it might have been better to get a tandem bike because then we couldn’t have run into each other. Either way, we forwent the last vineyard and went back to the rental place and then back to town. Still drunk and slightly bleeding.

1. Termas: On our last day in Mendoza, the Germans suggested we go up into the mountains to some thermal hot springs, and since we really had had no other plans than wine country (which was still a painful memory from the day before), we went along. The ride up the valley was beautiful, and although the day was cloudy and chilly, the weather actually ended up being perfect for hot springs. The termas were a series of pools – of which some were hot, some cool, and some really hot – that were built into a mountain side going down to a river. So besides the fantastic scenery, we basically got to spend our last day of real travel hanging out in a system of natural hot tubs. Not a bad way to end the trip.

Buenos Aires, Argentina

Before leaving the States for South America, there were a lot of things I was excited about doing and seeing this month, but none more so than Buenos Aires. Honestly, we could have planned our month route to go in any direction, and as long as it somehow wound through BsAs I’d be happy. Especially after the past four days or so where we’d been on 20-hour bus after 20-hour bus, we were extremely ready for the city because we’d planned on staying there longer than one or two nights. We arrived at the bus station around 2pm last Friday and after a quick goodbye to Keith (the American guy we’d been traveling with since Salta) MB and I headed off with Jon (the Canadian) to look for a hostel in the city. While doing anything after sitting on a bus for 20 hours may sound like a good idea, walking around a hot city with all our luggage following a map with a few marked hostel places got old quickly, but the last place we looked before heading back to the main street turned out to be a good deal and we stopped at Sudamerica Hostel for the night, and from there our adventures began. Side note: because BsAs was just so dern cool, and because we stayed there six days (by far our longest stint yet) I’m not going to stick to just a top five. And anyways, not like I ever promised I wouldn’t ever add a few every once in a while. So here goes – our seven memories of Buenos Aires, Argentina.

Us with Maradona - who was all over Boca

7. La Caminito – After a few days in Buenos Aires, we were pretty used to walking everywhere, so one day we decided to walk from our place in the center to one of the barrios: La Boca. Boca is famous for a few things, including being the birth place of Tango, being a dangerous neighborhood, and being home to the Boca Juniors stadium. It turned out to be a bit of a really long walk though, and once there all there really was to see was the Boca Stadium and the Caminito – basically a street art gallery where local artists sold paintings of tango and the neighborhood. Also this happened to be a day that MB and I weren’t feeling too hot, so we ventured to figure out the (really confusing) bus system and got back to city center on wheels.

6. Recoleta Cemetery ghost stories – On our second night in Buenos, we had decided to take things easy (as our first night was pretty intense… see number two below). We’d stayed in at the hostel and cooked dinner (which in retrospect may have been the reason we didn’t feel well when we went to La Boca… see number seven) and then we were looking around on the internet for things to see in the city the next day when we ran across a page about cultural events in Buenos Aires. And one of those events happened to be going on that night… in a little over an hour. So we got cute and grabbed a cab to the Recoleta cemetery, about a 15 minute ride away (Side note: only one of two cab rides this entire month. We’re so damn cool) to see Alberto Laiseca, a famous Argentinian writer, read ghost stories. We arrived and felt super trendy amongst a crowd of hipster locals and literary types, stayed long enough to listen to the first 20-minute story (entirely in Spanish and somewhat mumbly by the old gentleman writer) and then hopped up and decided to stroll around the neighborhood. Then, sans map and just using our keen senses of direction, we made the 50-minute walk back to the hostel from Recoleta. Again, so cool.

5. Book market – Apparently Buenos Aires is famous for being a very cultural and literary city, and as such there are all kinds of books shops everywhere you look in the city. We’d been wanting to go in and explore some, when on our second to last day in BsAs we were wandering around Palermo (the biggest of the barrios) and found an entire street of used book vendors in little stalls. So we perused the books, again, feeling trendy, and settled on some Argentine poetry and Spanish literature classics.

4. Free walking tour – I’d found a website advertising these free walking tours of BA by a British ex-pat living in the city, and we’d meant to go early in our time there but didn’t end up making it till our second to last day (the same day we found number five). We met up with the tour in the Plaza Italia in Palermo and were joined by two other American couples (yes, MB have gone back to being a couple, since at this point Jon had left our group). I wasn’t too sure what to expect from the tour, as many of the sites we went to I’d already seen in previous days walking around the city, but the information Jonathan (our British ex-pat guide) provided was great. We basically learned about the layout of the city, the history of the city, and a fair amount about the recent history of Argentina in general. We had political stops like the capital building and the Casa Rosada (the president’s offices – the pink house!) as well as cultural ones like learning about the most famous tango singer Carlos Gardel, and finally just some fun ones, like the fact that the Kosher McDonalds in the large shopping mall Abastos is the ONLY kosher McDonalds in the entire world outside of Israel.

Jon hangin out at the Kosher McDonalds - which isn't allowed to be photographed

3. El Bomba del Tiempo – Unlike many of our other stops on this trip (which as you can tell has mostly been to smaller towns and sites) our time in Buenos Aires not only included day-time activities, but also some nightlife finally added into the mix. Back in Salta, a Dutch girl we’d met had told us that if we went to Buenos Aires and were there on a Monday we HAD to go to El Bomba del Tiempo. So, on Monday night after parting ways finally with the Canadian, we headed off to the Konex theater, which ended up being about a 20 block walk, but whatever. Gotta burn those empanadas off somehow. El Bomba turned out to be an amazing experience. The inside of the place was an open courtyard that eventually became packed with a young hipster crowd and a whole lotta weed smoking, and around 8 pm 15 guys walked on to the stage all dressed in red and black jumpsuits and took their places around a circle formed by an assortment of drums. For the next two and a half hours we were blown away by what was basically an amazing drum line jam-sesh with a brief appearance of a talented pan-pipe player. The crowd was a bit slow at first but the pace quickly picked up and soon the jumping and dancing and clapping was non-stop.


2. Pub Crawl – As mentioned in number three, Buenos Aires was our first city where we really got a taste of some night life in South America, and on our very first night in the city Jon suggested we do a Pub Crawl that was advertised in the hostel. So we did. Again, this was one of our first times to have a successful night out (as in actually going out and not just getting dinner and a drink and feeling sleepy)… so we went a little hard. The pub crawl consisted of an hour of free beer, wine and pizza during registration (which, for some reason, we’d decided to pregame with an orange liqueur and Egyptian Rat Screw… although embarrassingly the Canadian won) and then included a walk to three bars in the Puerto Madero barrio (each with a free shooter) and finally free entrance to a club in the same area. Let’s just say after the second shooter the drinking wasn’t necessary, and by the time we got to the club things went by somehow and we ended up getting back to bed a little after 6 am. And that’s all MB is allowing me to say about that.

1. Feria San Telmo – After our night at the pub crawl, we needed a full day to recover, and so after our recovery day we got up somewhat early and headed over to one of the top recommended things to see in Buenos Aires – the open air Sunday market in the San Telmo Barrio. Totally worth getting up early for though, as the streets leading up to the main square were full of local handicrafts and vendors, and the main market turned out to be an incredible vintage fair. Everything there had to be guaranteed to be made before 1970 and the wares included everything from costume jewelry to 1930’s Rolex watches to antique books and glasses and the randomest trinkets and knickknacks. We walked around all the stalls at least three times ohh-ing and ahh-ing and buying all sorts of unnecessary plastic objects before we’d gotten our fill. Unfortunately, we somehow have expensive taste and some of the items we really wanted turned out to be a couple hundred US$, so had to pass those up. On the way home, the morning was made even better by a stop at a local walk-in sandwich shop and two very delicious choripans (chorizo sammies). Good day.

 

Iguazu Falls

For a couple of reasons, this post will be a bit different from the others. First, because we only spent a day in Iguazu, it’s very difficult to pick a top five moments, and second because we came to Iguazu for one thing – the Falls – and even if we’d been here longer the Falls would have taken up every spot on that top five list.

1.       Iguazu Falls – When we left Salta we were wondering if almost $100 and 24 hours on a bus was going to be worth it to see some waterfalls.  We stayed the night in a hostel with our travel buddies (an American named Keith and a Canadian named Jon) and all got up early the next morning and caught an early ride to the national park for the Falls. Basically, it’s not worth describing on here because it was beyond awesome, so I’ll just let the pictures speak for themselves.

Salta, Argentina - Videos

Here are the videos from number 1 on the last post: La Vieja Estacion. The first one is of the dancing show and the second is the drummline.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W7wPfby4yO4

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P_SwhmQkkf4

Salta, Argentina

Salta, Argentina

Welp, we made it out of Chile mostly intact. All we’re missing is one blue Nalgene bottle (MB), one red sports bra (me) and a whole lotta dry skin (MB is still peeling from the one day we went to the beach). However, dignity is still firmly in place. Or, it was when we left Chile. Argentina is a new country though, and so far it’s been great, from the moment we passed over the Andes in our private double decker bus till singing karaoke on a Monday night. Twice. Here’s the top five from Salta:





View from the bus coming into Argentina



Lounging: our favorite pastime.

5. Bus ride in: I’m not just saying this because Salta was lame and so the only cool part was a bus ride, but really, we had a pretty sweet deal. The bus left San Pedro around 11:30 in the morning with us and one other passenger, a guy from California named Parker. Not to mention that it was a double decker bus, so MB and I claimed the front half of the top deck and got a great view from the front window. Then we watched a pretty meh chick flick. Cried. After getting through Argentinian customs, we broke out the bottle of Pisco sour we’d brought on and drank the entire thing in about 30 minutes. Then we passed out. But somehow, this still wasn’t the best part. One of the bus drivers brought up about 20 snack boxes (with surprisingly good granola bars and fiber cookies) and dropped them on the seat behind us saying we could eat them all. Sounds great, right? But turns out there is a limit to how many granola bars and fiber cookies one can down without water or other supplemental snacks. Around this time, the bus started climbing up into the high planes of the Andes and on the Chilean side (the dry side) it was all gorgeous rock and desert and one dazzlingly white salt flat. The bus was going about 10 mph up the mountains, which was probably good since the turns were all pretty hairy for a double decker bus. But once we started going down on the other side of the mountains (into Chile) the scenery changed almost instantly. Turns out that’s the wet side of the mountains so everything was lush and green and it was this amazing valley with low sitting clouds. Once down in the valley we passed some adorable little villages (still lush and green) and tried to snap some pics out the front window without getting the bug splatters on the windshield in the way. After that it got dark and boring and became just another bus ride.



Looking out from the gondola



4. Cerro and the city: Since we’re no longer in Chile, we can no longer make use of our Rough Guide to Chile book, we decided to just Google “things to do in Salta, Argentina.” We got some good suggestions from various websites then set off into the city to explore. Our first stop was an atm and then the bus station (to get our tickets for our bus the next day to Iguazu) and then we took a gondola ride up the cerro on the edge of town. The view from the top was pretty nice, we could see the whole city, the cathedral, the soccer stadium, the airport, and then all the green hills around the edges. Once back in the city, we wandered around and looked at some of the famous churches. Later that night we went back to some of the churches, because they were supposed to be all lit up at night and really pretty. And they were. The next day, we wandered around some more, and for a while sat on a bench on one of the main pedestrian streets people watching. This backfired, and it seemed that the passerbyers were more interested in watching us than us watching them. We got totally once-overed by a little girl eating a cream puff and then a boy came along who was selling socks and asked if he could shine my shoes. I was wearing sandals that were basically flip flops, not sure what he thought he was going to shine,



Getting on the gondola

and what were the socks for?? I said “no gracias,” which was apparently really funny and he walked off laughing out loud snickering “no gracias? No gracias!! Hahahahahaha.” Mary Beth thought this was really funny and laughed so hard she cried. Later that afternoon we were walking along the same street and MB turned around really quickly and ran smack into a homeless man who snarled at her. She screamed.

Top of the Cerro

One of the churches lit up at night

3. Meeting single people: So, back to when we went up the cerro – on the way down, we decided to walk it instead of taking the gondola. We found a path with stairs that said it went right to the city center, so we started walking down and after a while heard voices coming from behind us also speaking English, and at least one that sounded definitely American. When the other group caught up to us we started talking with them and made three new friends (a tall German guy who mumbled, so even if I could pronounce his name I couldn’t really hear it anyways, a very blonde Dutch girl named Hannah and an American guy named Keith). We ended up walking and talking with them the rest of the way down the mountain and back in town MB and I led everyone (with the group leader skills picked up from Jeremy on the ski trip, obvi) to a market we’d read about on the internet that morning. After lunch – during which MB and I single-handedly finished two liters of beer – we split up from the group and went back to our hostel for a three hour nap. Day drinking really isn’t our thing. We met up with the same people later that night (although the German guy had been replaced by two more American girls from Iowa, Liz and Amy). Also, fun fact: Keith had decided that Iguazu Falls sounded like a cool place to go next and so had booked a bus ticket in the seat right next to us. More on him later, but it will be a long 24 hour bus ride. Although I guess it’d be pretty long anyways, 24 hours, right?

numnumnum

2. Tamales: At the market that MB and I led the group to, there was a sort of dingy food court area in the center that was full of local-looking people and beggars eating from places that all sold dirt cheap empanadas, pizza and tamales. We went for the tamales, and for a little under a dollar each, we just had a meal of tamale after tamale. They are different here though than in Texas – the tamales are short and round instead of long and thin, but omgosh they were delicious. We paired out tamales with two liters of beer and had quite the time. The next day, we returned to the tamale place for another round to serve as our hangover cure. No beer, just lots and lots of water.

1. La Vieja Estacion: Since MB and I had somehow been appointed group leaders (again, thanks brah) we met up with the group at the central plaza at 10pm and set off to look for the street where all the Peña’s were. Peña’s, we’d found out when Googling what to do in Salta, were popular places in Salta where you got dinner and a live folk music show. We went to La Vieja Estacion, one that had been recommended online, and for a cover charge of 15 pesos enjoyed a great dinner and great show. The show started with traditional Argentine dancing and MB and I (and the other girls in our group) drooled over the younger guy dancer who was described as “the most dangerous man in the room.” There were two sets of partners dancing (each a guy and a girl) and the younger pair was on the side closest to our table. I don’t know if it was the mojito we’d had before dinner or the bottle of red wine we split, but the dancing was super intense and super sexy. At one point, MB turned to me and yelled (b/c the music was very loud) “I’M SO TURNED ON RIGHT NOW,” which I think shocked some of the people at our table and was not repeated when they asked, “wait, what did you just say?” Later, the show turned into a four man band playing folk music, then back to the dancers, and then a family of drummers who basically did a really great drummline show. Four hours and 1.5 bottles of wine later, we were having a pretty good time, and not to toot my own horn (but beep beep) I think it’s safe to say MB and I were the life of the party. After the show we decided to go further down the street where the bars were supposed to be, but because it was a Monday night, most were pretty empty. We settled on one that had karaoke and was practically empty except for our table. However, two cuervo shots later and MB and I (again, life of the party here) were up on stage singling Sweet Caroline, and a while later, Wannabe. All in all, successful night. Unfortunately, the next morning – not so successful.

P.S. This is what the alphabet would look like if Q and R did not exist. But really, I'll post videos of La Vieja Estacion when we get to Iguazu, the upload was taking forever and we have a bus to catch!

San Pedro de Atacama

After an overnight bus trip, we arrived in San Pedro – the farthest north we’d be all trip. A small pueblo in the middle of the Atacama desert, San Pedro’s main industry is tourism, as there are some fantastic things to see around it. Unfortunately for us, the bus schedule struck again and we ended up only have one day in the desert. But during that one day we managed to have quite a few ups and downs. Top five:

5. Walking around the desert for an hour looking for our hostel:  We arrived in San Pedro at about 9 am, which in Chile means that NOTHING is open. And unfortunately I’d forgotten to download the directions to our hostel to my phone… which means we had no address or directions. Just the name: Iquisa. So we just started to follow the other people from the bus (as no one really knew where to go because there wasn’t a bus terminal, just a random drop off point for that bus company on the edge of town). Made it to the central plaza and looked around for a place with wifi. None were found. So we started to ask people directions to “Iquisa.” The first guy we asked in the square seemed to know where it was and gave us (really confusing) directions (which, an hour later, we looked back on and found they were actually spot on). So we set off trying to go where he’d told us, ending up out of town around (surprise) unmarked streets and people who now had no idea where or what “Iquisa” was.  At this point the desert sun was up and we were in pants and jackets (from the cold night and long bus trip) carrying all our luggage in backpack form. We finally came across another hostel in the area (Backpackers) and the lady was nice enough to let us in and use their wifi so I could check my email and get us directions. After that, it wasn’t too much longer (just a few wrong turns along the way, but if you haven’t noticed, that’s becoming a trend with us) till we found Iquisa, still outside of town, in an area MB described as “slumdog millionaire.” But hey, it was cheap.

4. Walking around for hours trying to figure out bus/tours: After getting to Iquisa, we basically dropped our packs, put on shorts, and went back to town (the owners didn’t really check us in or anything, but whatever). So our first mission was to figure out busses (made more difficult because there was no central terminal, only different bus agencies and various points around town) because we’d heard busses to Salta – our next destination – only left Sundays, Tuesdays and Fridays. After striking out at a few places, we finally found an agency that went to Salta, and only on those three days. Which sucked for us because that meant (as it was Saturday) we’d either have to leave the next day (Sunday) or stay two more days to leave Tuesday (and we were already quite behind our “schedule”). SO, we booked tickets for Sunday and then a tour for that afternoon/evening in the valley of the moon.

3. Meal plan: After our overnight bus from La Serena, our eating schedule was a bit off, and this was not helped by the fact that when we got to San Pedro, we wanted to get to the hostel and get bus tickets/tour tickets before doing anything else – and unfortunately this process lasted a very long time. On the bus, our dinner the night before had been two bananas and nutella, potato chips and a strange sandwich the bus company provided. For breakfast on the bus, a small cookie. After walking the desert for a few hours we were pretty hungry, so about noon we stopped at the first place with wifi and split a pizza. About an hour later we were still hungry and searched again for ice cream (which somehow, we’d been striking out at getting since Valpo) and ended up at a pasteleria splitting three large desert items between us. Then for dinner we started pregaming with some Pisco at our hostel and around 10:30pm we were starving again so went out to a restaurant, finally somewhat back on a regular eating plan.

2. Pisco sour: Although our dinner was great, and got us feeling better about our eating schedule, we ordered Pisco sours with dinner that somehow were unearthly strong. Like, after a few sips I was feeling drunk, and Mary Beth had stopped talking and was looking really wild-eyed. It was a nice restaurant, so the possibility we’d been drugged was low… but still. The drinks were really hard to finish and we were wasted when we left. One-drink wonders. We stumbled back to the hostel (to our slum) feeling a bit paranoid so we both carried headlamps (not too many streetlights) and I carried my knife in my hand the whole way. Probably not necessary, but again – wasted. Back at the hostel we passed out hard and I didn’t wake up when our roommates came in a little later, or when they packed and left in the morning.

1.  Valley of the moon: The tour started at 4pm and we loaded into a mini bus with about 16 other people and a tour guide named Pato (Patito!) who did the whole thing in Spanish and English. We’d drive for about 20 minutes into the desert and then he’d explain some geologic stuff and then we‘d get out and walk around for 15 to 30 minutes – and we did this about six times at various points of interest. Pretty cool desert, and of course, our bus was full of couples, so MB and I played the part and were the obnoxious American couple. Patito kept calling us the chicas locas because we’d skip down sand dunes and I tried to lick the salt rock at the mine. Our final stop was at a sand dune we hiked up for a view of the whole valley and the Andean volcanoes towards Argentina (all covered in snow) and we watched the sunset. Very romantic.

Couple shot

Lookin for salt in the mines

Climbing into the salt mines

View sunset in the Valley of the Moon

La Serena

Our next stop after Valpo was La Serena – a small beach town on the coast of Chile. The bus ride was about seven hours – not too bad –and the town was pretty adorable. La Serena is the second oldest city in Chile and most of downtown is all done in a Spanish Colonial style. Our first night (as we got in pretty close to evening) we stayed in a hostel near the center of town, but it was a little pricey for us so we moved out to a hostel recommended by the book. We only meant to spend three nights max in La Serena, but due to an unfortunate turn of events at the bus station, had to stay four nights, meaning we will spend our Friday night on an overnight bus to San Pedro de Atacama.  Here are the top five memories of La Serena:

Tongoy beach: I’d read about this beach in the book and it said it was way nicer than La Serena’s because of less traffic, buildings and people. But, since it’s not high season anymore, La Serena wasn’t that busy and Tongoy was practically empty. We took a micro down to Tongoy our first day here planning to get some sun. Most everything in Tongoy was empty and the beach was almost private, so we left our bags on the beach and swam a bit in the (pretty dern cold) Pacific ocean. Then we lay out for a while, not realizing how burned we might be getting because there was a constant breeze that never allowed the area to get too hot. Three to four hours later… and we’d turned from white gringas to red gringas. Oops.

Hostal Tamaya – We arrived in La Serena somewhat late in the afternoon our first day and were a bit sketched out by the places the book recommended as cheaper accommodations. We ventured in town and stumbled upon a really nice hostal with lush inner courtyard. It was a bit pricey for us (22,000 a night for a double room), but coming from Evelyn’s in Valpo, we felt we deserved a night of splurge. Before the sun went down we went to check out the beach and then headed to the grocery store and picked up some lomo and veggies for dinner. I made friends with the hostal cat (I may have bribed her with some lomo) and then MB and I enjoyed having a TV in our room that had some channels with English movies. Good breakfast the next morning, and although we really like Tamaya, we decided to go look for a cheaper place for the rest of our time in La Serena.

Casa Maria – One of the recommended cheaper accommodations in the book, we went to Casa Maria after Tamaya and decided almost immediately that the uber-friendly staff and equally cute courtyard was just as good a place as Tamaya and almost half the price. Also, the wifi at Maria’s worked much better than any place we’ve stayed so far. Due to frustrating bus schedules (for our next destination: San Pedro de Atacama) we found we’d have to stay longer than expected in La Serena, but because Maria’s was so enjoyable, that ended up not being such a bad thing. Maria’s was also nice because we finally started to meet other travelers, old and young (and a surprisingly high amount of Swedes). However, while Maria and staff (family) was really friendly we woke up one morning to what we think was Maria yelling “I AM NOT AN ALCOHOLIC” (in Spanish). Not sure, but added some personality to our stay.

Valle de Elqui – Home to the famous poet Gabriela Mistral, and more importantly, home to pisco, the Elqui Valley was pretty high up on things to do in La Serena. The valley is famous for being gorgeous, and it did not disappoint. We started on a bus up to Vicuna (the first town in the valley), which was a quaint town with nice shady central plaza. We got in fairly close to noon and the big pisco distillery (Capel) did tours until 12:30 and then started again at 2:30, but we wanted to catch the one before 12:30. So we ran/power walked out of Vicuna over to the distillery and managed to get the last English tour before lunch. We were the only visitors at the time, so it was a private tour. Capel was started as a cooperative by the grape growers in the valley in the early 20^th century and today is the largest pisco distillery in the country. The tour took us the whole way through the process: grapes, processed and pressed into wine, boiled in copper vats and distilled into an alcohol at about 80 percent, stored in oak barrels for varying lengths of time, depending on the quality of the desired product (from three months to two years), to being diluted down to about 35 or 40 percent alcohol, and finally to being bottled, labeled and packaged to ship to the entire country. At the end of the tour, we got a tasting and since it was just the two of us, we chatted with our guide and tried every flavor they had (from the different labels of pure pisco to all their ready-made mixes including pisco sours, pina coladas, and toffee flavored). All in all, somewhere around 20 different flavors. And again, we tried them all. So, feeling quite pleased and a bit soused, we walked back into the town and found a shady spot in the central plaza for a lunch of palta, gouda and bread. Then we napped.  After a while, we took another bus further up the valley (getting narrower and more picturesque) through Montegrande (Gabriela Mistral’s hometown) and up to Pisco Elqui. The distillery in Pisco Elqui (the oldest in Chile) had tours, but they were a bit overpriced so we just got a couple of pisco sours and sat on the veranda – which had a fantastic view of the valley and was nice and shady and green. The bus ride back down the valley (all the way to La Serena) took forever, but luckily the last round of pisco sours had totally knocked me out and I slept most of the way.

Sandals – On our third day in La Serena (when we’d planned on leaving, but again, crappy bus timing meant we stayed an extra day and a half) we walked around town in the morning looking at churches and the Museo Archeologico (which included a real Moai statue from Easter Island) and then headed back to Marias for lunch and a bottle of pisco sour we’d bought from Capel. After the afternoon pisco, MB went off for a nap and I stayed out in the courtyard for a bit and chatted with Pancho, a local to La Serena and Maria’s hermano. We talked for a while and he told me that here at the casa he used to make leather sandals and shoes to sell to guests, but in the last few years decided he didn’t just want to make the shoes, he would teach people how to make them themselves. Sounded cool, so the next day MB and I signed on for it and spent the morning cutting out leather pieces and using a hammer and metal nails with designs to create patterns on the leather straps. In the afternoon we returned to the workshop to paint the leather with colors of our choosing and then Pancho showed us how to put the shoe together. Just in time for our afternoon bus to San Pedro, we had hand crafted custom designed sandals added to our wardrobes!