12th Nov. 2016
We have been struggling to understand the opening hours of shops and restaurants in Chile. One place did have the opening times in the window, but when it was shut these times were obscured by the shutters – not very helpful! As you know, Dave likes his morning coffee so, using our favourite search engine, we found a list of coffee shops and none opened until 10:30am! At the coffee shop there was some sign of life at 10:40 but we were told another 5 minutes until they were serving. As we sat in the shopping centre sipping our coffee, the shops were just beginning to open at 11am, quite late for a Saturday.
Refreshed, it was time to see what La Serena has to offer and first up bizarrely was a Japanese Garden. These are very authentic complete with waterfall, red bridge and stone pagoda statue. It was a popular choice this morning and everyone seemed to want their photo taken in front of this or next to that, which made it difficult to get decent shots without including other posing tourists.
After having a pleasant wander around the gardens we headed towards the main plaza via Iglesia Santo Domingo where we heard drums playing and saw colourful dresses. Time for another parade. We were soon engrossed in watching various bands and groups marching from the church and off along to the main plaza. This caused havoc with the Saturday morning traffic and the main square was soon chock-a-block with cars.
The actual plaza was also buzzing with people and stalls selling a wide range of food and jewellery and souvenirs. The most activity we have seen in a while. In the centre of the plaza was an interesting fountain with figurines on all four sides. We continued walking around the square looking for the entrance to the Municipalidad mentioned in Lonely Planet to check out the historical photos inside, but could not find it. We therefore contented ourselves with the ornate law courts alongside the cathedral.
More wandering took us past various churches of which there a some 29 in town but we did not see them all. A brochure we picked up in our hostel mentioned a mural in the train station so we just had to investigate, again a red herring. Hmm. Even going supermarket hunting we drew a blank as we again had duff information. What is it with La Serena?
It has been a cloudy cold day, chilly by Chile standards. How will we cope when we get home? We considered visiting the museums but they both shut at 1pm so we were too late. One reopens at 4 until 7 but we have run out of enthusiasm. Returning to our hostel at around 4pm we see a restaurant just across the road open and advertising fresh pasta, always a good call so we decided to go back there for dinner. You guessed it, as we went out at 8pm it was closing up.
For a Saturday night everywhere was either closed or empty so once again we ate alone, this time in a Chinese restaurant. The main plaza was dark and completely empty except for the lights on the cathedral tower. We wandered further and did find one busy street which was full of dubious bars so we headed home and an early night. We have not quite been in tune with La Serena but I have high hopes for Valparaiso, our next stop.