La Serena

Saturday August 18.

Arrived around 8:30 in Santiago. The reciprocity fee for US citizens is now 160 dollars. It is good for the life of your passport.. I had paid the fee in 2006; my passport was still in use. I had paid 100 dollars.

Tried to get a micro sim card in the airport. No one had one. Movistar did not even sell sim cards.. But the man in the Movistar booth told us that they were available in any shopping mall, and probably cheaper than in the airport. They wanted 12000 pesos for a sim card.

We boarded our plane to La Serena. Before we left, I had purchased our domestic flight on Sky Airlines through their website. The total cost for the flight from Santiago to La Serena was $175 US.

We arrived in La Serena at 1 pm. Clear blue skies. Snow covered mountains easily visible. The taxi ride from the airport to the center of town was 5000 pesos. There was also a shuttle service available from the airport for 2000 pesos a person. The ride into town takes only about 15 minutes.



We had made a reservation at Hostal El Arbol. It had been opened less than a year. It is located on a quiet residential street, only a few blocks from the main square.


We reserved a private double room with shared bath. Our room was on the second floor. It was small but had a pleasant view of the Japense Gardens.

There were three private rooms and three rooms with bunk beds. There was a bath on each floor; a common room, kitchen and outdoor patio on the first floor.. The hostal is run by Margarita; her daughter Allie was also there helping her.

We spent most of the afternoon exploring the city on foot.

The Recova market has handicrafts and on its second floor many small restaurants. There is also a supermarket next door. We ate lunch - two generously sized hamburgers - at the colonial cafe. It cost about twenty dollars.



We visited the Japanese gardens but it was really not the right season - winter - to see the plants and trees at their peak.





In the evening we walked to the large mall and obtained sim cards for our phones from the helpful staff at the Paris department store. They were amazed by our micro sim cutter: it trims full sized sim cards to a size to fit our iPhones. We paid 3000 a piece for the cards and some minutes. Not sure yet how much credit we have on the phones.

Had a hard time finding a place that was open for dinner. The town seemed to close up early.