The bus journey from Valparaiso to La Sereña took about 8 hours, and we arrived in relatively good shape at Hostal Casa Maria in mid afternoon. We had hugged the coast on the way north, passing fairly arid landscape consisting of scrubland strewn with cacti to our right, and dramatic views of the cliffs and shoreline to the left.
Casa Maria turned out to be the nicest accommodation we have had so far in South America. Our room was in the back garden of the house occupied by the owners and set amidst lemon and cherry trees. It was a lovely spot to chill out in for a few days, and since Sarah was coming down with the flu it turned out to be a perfect place to convalesce.
Mauritio and his mam (Maria) run the place, and they are quite a pair. Mammy clucks around, scolding poor old Mauritio (in his mid 30s at least) for spending too much time on the computer and not enough cleaning and scrubbing. We awoke one morning to the sound of a blazing row between them, the culmiation of which had Mauritio on his hands and knees scrubbing out the under decking of one of the raised rooms at the back of the garden, Mammy standing triumphantly akimbo smiling sweetly at the guests in between firce glances towards her offspring. Alex, our Safrican buddy is a Calvinist Minister back home, and hates any sort of conflict especially one in which he cannot understand enough of what is going on in order to intervene in. He was cowering in the corner while all this was going on. It felt like you were at a friends house when their Ma went off on one at them..hilarious.
La Sereña is a sleepy old town set about 2km back from the seafront. The beach is nothing spectacular, a long wild strip that would be great for surfing and windsurfing but it certainly is not for swimming. I went for a run down along it one day and could see the rip pretty clearly.
So we relaxed for the afternoon, wandered around town and decided to take a trip out to the astronomical observatory at Mamalluca about 70km inland near the town of Vicuña.
Northern Chile is one of the best places in the world to observe the night sky, and we were treated to a few hours of star gazing by an excellent and abundantly knowledgable local guide. We were lucky enough to have arrived on a full moon. I have never seen the moon rise with such clarity as I did that night, its rays peeping over the surrounding peeks until its light burst over illuminating the entire observatory site. At a brief lecture afterwards the guide used an amazing programme called Stellarium (free to download) which is sort of a Google Earth for the cosmos.
Next day was a lazy one. We had planned on trying to find a decent beach for a swim but the weather was overcast in the morning so we resorted to a few hours of wandering about town and catching up on emails. Mama Maria was in full fettle again. Our laundry was hanging out to dry and a bird had shit a pair of Sarah's shorts. Panic. It's Mauritio's fault of course. "Loco Mauritio". We have to catch our bus in half an hour. Tears well in Mama's eyes. What will the foreigners think of us? Sending them off with wet shitty shorts! "Lo siento ...ohhhh lo siento Saraaaa!'. Sarah did her best to assure her that the sky wasnt going to cave in, and that the famously high standards of Chilean hospitality had not just received a fatal blow. As we were on our way out Mama saw the guitar..."ohhhh me guuusta Jimiii Henrix..me gusta Rolleen Stone....ooooh Meek Yaaaager...y Los Beeetos....ahhh". A rare old bird, quite the sweet old character!
We had booked ourselves on a night bus to San Pedro de Atacama and together with our South African travelling companions set off for the station.
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