Exploring: Santiago, Valpo and La Serena; Day 5
Fulbright Hellos / Bus Travels to La Serena
After an informative and warm morning meeting with the head administrators of the Fulbright Scholar Program here in Chile, we packed up our apartment and headed for the bus station. La Serena is another 6 hours north of Santaigo but the route follows along the coast and was extremely scenic. There were huge swells pounding the shore and the air was full of sea spray. I later read that the surf was so powerful that all the harbors were closed along this stretch of coast. I could only think of surfing...and shudder at the memory of one trip out to Point Mugu in 9th grade when the guy next to me had his board snapped by one of the huge waves. The ocean is a powerful, beautiful thing. No, I didn't take any photos...
After an informative and warm morning meeting with the head administrators of the Fulbright Scholar Program here in Chile, we packed up our apartment and headed for the bus station. La Serena is another 6 hours north of Santaigo but the route follows along the coast and was extremely scenic. There were huge swells pounding the shore and the air was full of sea spray. I later read that the surf was so powerful that all the harbors were closed along this stretch of coast. I could only think of surfing...and shudder at the memory of one trip out to Point Mugu in 9th grade when the guy next to me had his board snapped by one of the huge waves. The ocean is a powerful, beautiful thing. No, I didn't take any photos...
Upon (late due to road construction) arrival in La Serena, we walked to the Hostal "El Arbol" (amazing breakfast) where we had arranged to stay one night (~$70 for two rooms). My immediate priority was to take a taxi to the airport and rent our car before the office closed at 10pm. When I made it to the airport I realize that even though I had my passport, I had no drivers license in hand and would not be able to rent the car without it. Luckily, I was able to search through my Gmail on the agent's computer and find a scanned version I had four years prior sent to a colleague to get permission to drive NSF's research vehicles in Alaska. Thank goodness for the cloud. We printed out the scan and I was on my way in a cute little Toyota Yaris. It has been years since I have driven a stick and I was glad to have the cover of night to conceal my multiple stalls. Hungry we walked the streets for food, noting our first Chilean transvestite. We dined on our first Chinese in Chile and were glad to see that these folks really do eat late. We were at the restaurant from 10:30 till 12am and there were many other family eating out. Note: Diente de Dragon is just sautéed bean sprouts. No teeth, no dragon.