Our tour begins

We have moved into our tour hotel - Mar de Ensueno, along the beach.

The wifi is CRAP and am having trouble doing the blog.

We went on a tour of Cerro Tololo observatory today, and it was fascinating.

Otherwise there nothing so bleak as a seaside resort in the winter!  We can see amazing long surf.

EARTHQUAKE

We  were woken last night, about 4:30am by our bed moving and cupboard doors shaking noisily.   It went on for less than a minute and we realised it was a tremor/earthquake.

When I looked for the local meteorological website, I found that there are several earthquakes every day in Chile!  No wonder the buildings are all low-rise.

Ours was 66km north of La Serena, at a depth of 81km and magnitude 5.

https://earthquaketrack.com/quakes/2019-06-28-08-30-42-utc-5-0-81

OMG!  I did not know all this before bought our tickets!  Safer in the bell-tower.

The juggler

This man was making the most of the afternoon rush hour in La Serena.  Taken from our hotel window.

And as the lights changed, he moved forwards to collect any offerings.

Food

Seen in our walk this morning.

The only Chinese restaurant we have seen.  it was closed so had to grab the pics of the menu through the grill doors.  All translated into Spanish. 

 Seen in a supermarket

And what are these?! Google needed.

BTW, there is NOTHING from Australia. Not surprising I suppose - they produce what we produce.

One last puzzle - how do you ask a vendor in Chile if his food contains chilli?!

Random street scenes

There were a lot of hairdressers in this stretch of shops.

and a vet.

There are overhead wires - tied together neatly.

Self-explanatory

Same street

Donde El Guaton (Where is the fat man?)

We have settled into the Spanish routine remarkably quickly - a leisurely lunch, back for a snooze and thin soup for dinner.  Helps the jetlag no end

Kin Mun researched a restaurant for lunch, Donde el Guaton.  After a walk, via various shops, we found it.

And walked in.

There was a big grill at the front of the restaurant

but it seemed to be only for the bread.

We ordered.

We had two traditional Chilean dishes.  I had Choclo, and the description of corn, onions, minced meat, chicken did nothing to prepare me for what came! It is the Chilean version of shepherd's pie, with corn instead of mashed potato and topped with sugar which melts into the corn.  Quiet sweet - but actually very nice.

Kin Mun had the house specialty - a huge piece of tender beef, salad and rice.

And postre (dessert).

And a glass of red wine - Chilean of course.  Limon juice  (which is actually lime), and coffee, all for AU25 each. 

You can see that the restaurant is not over-heated - nor is anywhere else. 

Bits and pieces

A La Serena Fabric shop. It sold everything from dress and suit cloths, to home furnishings, fleece etc.  They were stored behind the counter and there were shop assistants everywhere.

Cracks in buildings.  A fairly typical street scene.  There are few, if any, high-rise buildings.

Visually impaired people were out selling the items du jour - in this case, eclipse viewing glasses.  The irony or black humour was not lost on us.....

A nation's number plates take my attention...

Churches in La Serena

We went for a walk this morning.

This is our hotel.

There are several churches in the main city.
This is Santo Domingo.

And it has a bell-tower.  We could make out one bell, hung for chiming.

This is the cathedral.

It is as old as our own Christ Church St Laurence.

This is the organ, behind the altar

There are plenty of statues.  This one reminded me of our trip to Andalucia just before easter.

And the Spanish do not shy away from the gory details.

These are also an infection-control-nightmare as people would look, kiss the feet and touch the knees.

There was a steady stream of worshippers.  The church did not seem to be in decline. 

Santiago and La Serena

We had a good flight to Santiago.  I have never flown so far south before!  We were down to the 65th parallel.

We saw NOTHING for 11 hours.  Having 4 engines on our trusty 747 was reassuring!  Then an hour or so before landing, we saw this - South America!

There were mountains to the right and to the left of us as we flew up the coastline towards Santiago.  The ones out the right (to the east) were snow covered  A spectacular sight.

The pilot had to fly around the mountain before he saw the runway.  He certainly didn't train for that in Longreach.

La Serena airport was small.  There were notices about the upcoming eclipse.  This small town will have its time in the sun (or should I say shadow).

There was a map showing where the good viewing points are.

People have been very friendly and helpful.  Two local ladies helped us with the ATM.  I think they also wanted to give us a lift into town - but years of training have made us cautious.  For once, "I speaka no Spanish" came in useful!

Our hotel is basic - but solid, clean, and everything works.  Wifi is also good - I haven't had to resize the pics to post them, so you may be deluged.  Our Camino Spanish is being brushed off and getting a work-out. Had ensalada mixta con atun (mixed salad with tuna) once again!