The most horrible/first trip out of Santiago Part Dos

Ch 3. Back to La serena

Ok so where did i leave off... ok yeah we returned the rental car and were trying to find a bus to Punto de Chorros. But first after all this stress and walking we wanted something to eat, it was about lunch time anyways. It was delicious, I can't remember what its called but April and I split a Chilean dish. It was French fries covered with chorizo (sausage), another kind of meat we couldnt/didnt want to figure out what it was, and cheese, and onions.. it was probably most unhealthiest thing I have eaten in Chile, so far at least.

After we were done eating we met the owners to the restaurant and we just talking to them. They were truly impressed with our Spanish. They also helped us find a tour guiding place that would take us to the Penguins. For some reason we thought it was back at the bus station where we arrived in La Serena.. Completely wrong direction, it was just past Plaza de Armas. So once we actually found the place, after walking past it once and then getting the help of Manuel, a waiter we met on the street who was hanging out business cards for Restaurant Do Brasil (where he worked). It turned out to be closed, but somehow Manuel had the number for the owner of that place too... But it turned out all of the buses were doing a tour in Santiago that weekend.

So since we needed somewhere to stay Manuel knew a person who owned a hostel... By this point it seemed kind of sketchy, and I didn't know whether we should trust him or not. It just because people in the United States wouldn't normally go this far out of their way to help someone.. and he didn't ask us for money, I think he just wanted us to come to his restaurant that night.

So we settled into a the Hostel Residencial Suiza, we decided to have a look around at this little market down the street, called La Recova. (When we were back in Santiago, Jessica's mom told us to go here. But when we got here we wanted to look for it, but we didn't realize we had already found it until the day before we left) (if that made any sense).  So we went shopping, I bought a hat made out of alpaca wool (typical Gringo) and a key chain made out of this stone, Lapis Lazuli, that is only found in Chile and Afghanistan. There's a few other places but it is not as abundant there. I also bought this alcohol that is kinda like rum. One was made from strawberries and the other from papaya.

So we went to Do Brasil for dinner to see our new found friend Manuel. It was a little pricey, but the food was good. I think there and the other restaurants they take your order and then go down to the meat market that is in La Recova and buy it there. It was really interesting to see how interdependent all of the stores/restaurants where in La Serena.

None of us are in the right state of mind here.. but its a good pic!

The only little annoying thing was that when we were heading up to the restaurant there were all these other waiters and waitresses trying to get us to eat at there places. But I think since it is winter and there isn't much tourism so all the places are suffering. We were actually the only ones in our restaurant at the time...

So after out stomachs were full we headed back to the hostel, but ended up stopping at a bar called Gringuito.. (little foreigner) because we figured there would be a lot of younger people in there... (I still have no idea as to why we figured this... it's like judging a book by its cover). Any ways we ended up meeting some guys and they kept buying us beer... and this beer doesn't come in cans or bottles or on tap... it come by the liter. so we all split them and shared it... It was a fun night/interesting night to say the least.

The next day Dustin, Sarah, and April had to leave... They had Monday Classes to attend, while Jessica and I had a relaxing rest to the weekend. It was well deserved after the adventure we had had in Vicuna. We just went back to La Recova and shopped around a little more... Then before we knew it, we were headed back home on the Turbus...

April and I with our onion omelet

So, I guess that concludes the adventure of the most horrible/first trip out of Santiago.. hope you enjoyed

<3Leslie

P.s sorry for all the english grammar errors and weird sentence structure.. I think being submersed into a place wheres its Spanish all the time has some what affected my ability of using the english language...