Santiago and La Serena

We had finally arrived to visit Santiago city having spent so many nights and days in the airport on the way to other countries or places. We had a recommendation from David on the Island for a hotel in the centre. So we took a taxi from the airport to the centre and as we approach downtown there is a naked body being fished out of the river...its like a scene from CSI Santiago! No trepidation for the stay in Santiago...muchos!
We located the hotel and check in..a bit squalid and there is some confusion as to the identity of the hotel as 'Hotel Paris 1' is posh and 'Hotel Paris 2' doubles as a whorehouse..I think we are in two. Still judging by the Madame in reception who looks all the way a Latin Dolly Parton (best little whorehouse in Texas) with more rouge, we are in the right - or wrong - place dependng on your religious hankering. The interior decor and ambience was somewhat different from the Refugio Nautico we left only 6 hours ago - sigh!
We were warned not to venture more than a couple of blocks from the area around the hotel so we paid a brief visit to the Plaza des Armas and witnessed the traditional chess expo in the central bandstand - where some of the better players were older than the bandstand itself. There was an interesting changing of the guard ceremony taking place at the governmental palace and we could only find an Italian cafe that was a) open, b) had other people eating in it and c) had no aggressive looking drinkers inside - so that was our choice of repaste! After loosely-what-could-be-termed-breakfast the next morning we get our arses up to the airport and on a flight to La Serena tout suite!
La Serena was a favorite with the pirates and it was sacked more times than Larry Tsonka! Wills D and the other pirates are notorious here and there was still trepidation about a visit by the Ingles up until the late 1800's...not so now. We checked into the poshest hotel in town..they didn't do rooms by the hour...and took a lovely walk into the best preserved colonial town in Chile.
The original church sacked by the Captain Morgan still exists and there is enough left of the town from the early years to get a feel for the panic that would ensue as the Ingles Invaders were spotted from the headland and the townsfolk made for the mountains with their valuables. This is also market town with markets down every little street from food to glorious Inca posts with stuff all the way from Peru.
One of the mornings I jump out of bed as the whole hotel shakes and make for the window. It is an all too common earthquake. It doesn't even register with the people in the hotel as they shrug and say that they happen two or three times a week. It was a strange sensation and a reminder that the whole Pacific coastline from here right up to Oregon is on the move constantly.
This area is also the centre for Stallar Observatories and the production of Pisco grapes in the Elqui valley not far from here. We paid a visit one of the observatories near Vicuna on a night where the stars reach to the horizon and fortunately we haven't had too much local Pisco. Saturn is clear in the sky and even clearer through the telescope...Mars also, and we get a glimpse of Alpha and Beta Centuri which are so beautiful through the lens.
Following our celestial evening we drove up the Elqui valley where they produce all the Pisco grapes you can drink and where the Nobel poet Gabriela Mistral lived and worked. It is a beautiful barren valley which seems to go on forever, the vines growing in such an inhospitable place but with such vivid red and yellow foliage set against the stark arid desert..no wonder it tastes so good.
We leave La Serena with a little sadness as it is our last hours in South America and we are off to NZ this evening...desole!!! Goodbye South America or Adios...you have been a good friend, ciao