The weather was overcast and surprisingly cool, not more
than 70 degrees and sometimes even cooler in the sea breeze. The terrain seemed much like the American
Southwest, very dry except for irrigated areas.
 |
| Horseshoe Beach |
Our tour guide, Claudia, is a 4th-year college student at
La Serena University, majoring in English, and said she will be allowed to
teach in two years. (We hope her English
would be much improved in two more years!)
Our tour took us from the pier at Coquimbo, driving past Penuelas, a fisherman's
cove with restaurants, casinos and a horse club, and then Totoralillo, a small
peninsula that is home to two white sand beaches. The word Coquimbo means “calm waters” – there
are practically no waves on the Coquimbo coastline, probably because much of
the coast is in the shape of a horseshoe.
 |
| La Serena Lighthouse |
Adjacent
to Coquimbo is the larger city, La Serena (“The Serene”), with white sand
beaches, classic colonial buildings, and contemporary hotels, the result of La
Serena’s resort boom. La Serena was
founded in the mid-16th century by Juan Bohon, a Spanish captain and the
governor of Santiago, and is Chile’s second oldest metropolis. Soon afterward, silver was discovered in the
area, fueling an economic boom that attracted people from all over South
America. Our bus stopped at a lookout,
where there are statues, one of them the Hombre Inglesia (“English Man”), in
commemoration of English migration to this area, which followed an Italian wave. Next,
we stopped at a lighthouse on the Avenida del Mar – which was never a working
lighthouse, only a pleasant place for tourists to visit. A little later, we could see a mosque on a
hill, which Claudia told us was not a functioning mosque but, again, was a
tourist center. (She said there was a
real mosque not too far away.) We
stopped at the small Museo Arquelgico (archeological museum) of Serena, which
contains pre-Columbian bones and artifacts left behind by Chile’s indigenous
cultures.
The
history of the Diaguita people, for instance, began around 1000 A.D. when they
first descended from the Andes mountain range to settle in Chile's valleys. The population flourished between the eighth
and 15th centuries, settling in the Norte Chico valleys and growing to a
population of nearly 30,000 at their peak. The Diaguita formed an
agrarian-based society, creating an extensive and highly efficient irrigation system
able to sustain a large population. They were known as walking farmers, moving
from the coast to the mountains depending on which climate would give them the
best agricultural results. An advanced
society that valued art and artisans, they were known for their varied and
beautiful pottery and weaving. These
artisanal traditions continued despite years of submission, first by the Inca
empire and then by the Spaniards.
Also,
there was a short stop at a local market, where homemade jewelry, knit goods,
and other rustic items were for sale. Our
travel brochure listed sales of “stone handicrafts, lapis lazuli jewelry, and
alpaca wool items, as well as sugar-coated papaya.” Although we still carried Chilean pesos that
we had not spent in Santiago, we didn’t purchase anything – though Sally was
tempted by the very thick, colorful wool socks.
At the La Serena University (which Claudia called “my university”), we
stopped for a panoramic view of the city, though it was too overcast to present
a crisp view.
By
4:30 PM we were onboard the ship. A
little over an hour later, we were seated at a table in the dining room,
joining Charlie and Bev from Alberta, Canada, and Scott and Terri from New Jersey
and Florida. (They live six months in
each location.) This is Charlie and
Bev’s third cruise, but Scott and Terri’s 65th cruise. After dinner, we danced to the Tango Club
Quintet in the Wheelhouse Bar for 45 minutes and to the Atomic in Club Fusion
for 30 minutes before retiring to our cabin for the night. We set our clocks back by one hour before
shutting down.
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