La Serena

Day 219-223 – La Serena, Chile

La Serena is a coastal city, with a colonial city centre, huge apartment blocks on the outside and a long beach.

I didn’t avail myself of the later, but I enjoyed the city centre with its Plaza de Armas, and in particular the Japanese Garden. 

I especially liked the Japanese Garden, which was next to my hostel. It is the summer holidays here, so families are out with children, but still, it was very nice to spend an afternoon or two there.

I discovered a new fruit, the copao, which is a cactus fruit that comes from this region, in its ice cream form. It’s sour, and reminds one of lemon. 

Hiking outside of Vicuna – Copao fruit

My activities in La Serena: laundry at the 5 à Sec, cooking, and a lot of resting. The patio in the hostel was nice. The space between the upper and lower bunk beds was quite… narrow, though, and delicate manoeuenvring was essential.

And then I left for Vicuna where I was to spend one night, maybe two… and then they were three.