Monday, March 5, 2018: Cruise Day 41- Coquimbo/LaSerena

Monday, March 5, 2018: Cruise Day 41- Coquimbo/LaSerena

We arrived late at port, but got to see the ship approach Coquimbo, which has a large cross like structure on a hillside overlooking the harbor.  There appears to be observation windows in the extended arms and a skylight at the very top.  This structure wasn’t described in the port destination lectures, and wasn’t on any of the excursion itineraries, but appeared to be a notable structure nonetheless.  The weather was looking to shape up to be a perfect day.  There were low lying clouds as we docked, but by the time we finished our breakfast in the buffet, the sky had cleared and the temperatures outside were in the mid to upper 60’s.  

Our tour bus took us along the waterfront between Coquimbo and LaSerena.  They have a beautiful waterfront that extends along a long stretch of beach between the two towns with a boardwalk featuring cycling paths and exercise stations.  We also saw people harvesting seaweed into wheel barrows along the beach.  Our guide said the seaweed is exported to Japan and used for manufacturing cosmetics, and food additives.  We saw a large sea lion laid out on the beach as we drove by, and weren’t sure if it was just sleeping, or maybe dead, but there were no seagulls bothering it, so it must have just been relaxing.  

As we drove along the waterfront, we saw another cruise ship pulling into the harbor.  It was the Oceania Serena, which used to be the Ocean Princess.  It was sold to Oceania in 2016 and retrofitted to Oceania’s fleet. It’s sister ship, the Pacific Princess, remains in the Princess fleet and specializes in the Princess World Cruise itinerary.  It is the smallest ship in the Princess fleet accomodating 670 passengers with 375 crew.  It is able to get in and out of smaller ports than most of the other ships in the fleet can.  The Serena was anchored in the harbor and using tenders to transfer passengers ashore.   

As we drove along the beachfront from Coquimbo harbor towards LaSerena, we learned that an earthquake in 2015 had triggered a tsunami that did extensive damage to the harborfront in Coquimbo.  Consequently, there wasn’t much development around the waterfront in Coquimbo.  However, the tsunami travelled perpendicular to the beach that we were driving along, so the waves didn’t damage the areas along the beach.  They just hit Coquimbo harbor dead on.  Their tsunami warnings and evacuations were largely successful in minimizing loss of life.  

Our first stop was at a historic lighthouse at the end of the beach in LaSerena.  It is situated in a castle like structure with one large rusting 8” gun pointing out to sea on the backside.  It is an attractive and well maintained local landmark.  From there, we turned inland and drove through LaSerena, which is a fairly large city that for the most part appears to be well developed.  There are some hotels, and we drove past several well kept schools, car dealerships, and even supermarkets.  We made a beeline into the country side via a well maintained toll highway.  

The countryside looked very much like Arizona or New Mexico, complete with rugged hills covered with large cacti.  There are lots of different cacti including some that appeared to be nearly as large as the saguaro cacti, but without the characteristic uptwisting arms.  These just looked like large vertical bunched trunks, some of which were covered with bright red flowers.  The geology of the area looks very much like the desert southwest, and there are apparently many places near Coquimbo where people hunt for quartz crystals.  

We headed up the Elqui Valley which is covered in grape vineyards and other farms including mango plantations.  The valley walls are quite arid and covered with cacti, but the valley floor is verdant with the use of irrigation from the river.  At the head of the valley is a large dam, holding back a large lake which was quite scenic.  The road through the valley is called the highway to the stars because there are several observatories situated high on the foothills of the Andes along the valley.  There are many sites in the hillsides with petroglyphs, although these were not part of our tour.  Our main destination was the Capel Pisco Distillery at the head of the lake.  

The Capel Pisco Distillery is a very large commercial Pisco operation.  Pisco is South America’s trademark spirit, and it is distilled from wine made with Moscatel grapes grown in the Elqui Valley.  The grapes are destemmed, crushed and made into wine in huge concrete fermentation tanks.  Then the spirits are distilled from the wine. which is then aged in casks for up to 2 years.  We had a detailed guided tour, although the guide only spoke spanish, and our Princess tour guide was not really able to explain everything to everyone in our large group of over 30 people.  But we managed to get the jist of it.  We did end up in the tasting room and got to sample some of the products which included pre-mixed bottled Pisco sours, Pisco mango cocktail and a Pisco Piña Colada.  Janet liked the Piña Colada the best, because it was like drinking coconut candy that gave you a solid buzz.  The tasting room was strangely stingy about passing out samples and didn’t sample any of the straight Pisco that they sold.  However, the Pisco seemed pretty cheap.  You could get a half liter bottle for about US$8.00 and it is 80 proof.  

Our next stop was the village of Vicuna where we toured the town square, wandered through a local supermarket and shops, and then had lunch in a restaurant named after Halley’s Comet.  We had beef empanadas, salad, steak and rice.  The steaks were tuff and overcooked, so we have to conclude that Brazil and Argentina are the places to find a good steak, but in Chile, it’s best to stick with seafood.  The Pisco sours and Chilean red wines were free flowing, so we had a good time and didn’t mind the steaks so much.  After all, we are not in any danger of suffering malnutrition on this cruise vacation.  We did notice lots of stray dogs in the village square, including some that seemed to be able to sniff out food in someone’s grocery bag and aggressively beg for handouts.  Some corners on the square had as many as six dogs laying about.  Some looked well fed, but others were distinctly mangey and sickly looking.  None appeared to have been neutered or spayed.  Apparently city dogs are a common problem throughout Chile.  

We reboarded out bus and then headed back to the central craft market, the La Recova market in LaSerena’s central square.  It was a large craft market with tons of cheap souvenir items.  Janet had her eye on a few pieces of Lapis Lazure, but didn’t end up buying anything, bearing in mind that we are downsizing and have sworn to take only pictures (and a few free rocks) and leave only footprints in our travels.  

The entire day was accompanied by perfect sunny weather.  It was warm enough to feel good in shirt sleeves, but not hot, and there was always a nice slight breeze.  Today was the first day of school after their summer break, and as we walked around the La Recova market, uniformed school kids began flooding the streets, which was an interesting site.  The kids all seem pretty happy and well adjusted.  This part of Chile is distinctly not 3rd world at all.  It seems like a nice place to live and raise kids. 

We returned to the ship just before the scheduled departure time, but our departure was delayed by an hour or so due to some customs issues.  We had dinner in the dining room and sat in a window booth, where we could see the ship finally push off from the dock and head back out to sea.  

We attended the early theatre show featuring a Jesse and Colleen Kazemek who put on a Beatles tribute show.  They displayed Beatles Trivia questions on slides during the pre-show, which we took an interest in, and their show was enjoyable.  The entertainment on this cruise has been pretty good to excellent overall.  Our replacement cruise director Natalie Costa has jumped right in and made herself right at home.  

There was a Motown music trivia in the evening which we attended with Roger (Santa), Ted and Kathleen.  Cathy and John were nowhere to be found, but were probably having their late seating dinner.  We did pretty well, tying for second place, but the winning team beat us by 3 points, which was pretty remarkable.  We thought we put up a good fight on that one. Some new guy joined the winning team, and he was described as a Motown savant who knew all the songs and artists.  Too bad he didn’t decide to join our team since we still had one opening.  

Tomorrow we turn our clocks back an hour, and have two days at sea ahead of us. Janet wanted to mention the we got an email from her brother Jack who commented that it was a good thing we were healthy.  However, Ben picked up an upper respiratory tract virus that started with a sore throat on the day we rejoined the trip in Buenos Aires.  It dropped right down into his larynx the next day and for the next 2 weeks, he was coughing, but not at all laid out in any other way.  The cough cleared up and was nearly completely gone, but has been replaced by frequent throat clearing that is driving Janet nuts.  We’re both hoping that will go away soon, but sitting the theatre tonight, and even on our tour bus, it seems that 10-20% of the people on the ship are going through the same upper respiratory syndrome as there is coughing and throat clearing going on all around.  It’s ironic that Ben has been taking Airborne and using Zicam, paranoid about getting something on the trip, while Janet hasn’t, and has been perfectly healthy.  Guess her immune system is first rate, while Ben’s is just not up to snuff.