Cruising Down the Coast of Chile

Antofagasta, Chile

From San Pedro de Atacama we had a little less than one week to make our way down to Valparaiso where we were scheduled to start volunteering at a bed and breakfast. We chose to stop at two cities on the coast of Chile along the way: Antofagasta and La Serena/Coquimbo. Antofagasta, though quite a reasonably sized city, isn’t much of a tourist stop and we used it mostly as a place to stay overnight to break up what would otherwise be a very long bus journey.

We spent our one day there doing what we hadn’t done in months: walking around a mall. It was here where we fully started to appreciate how much affluence is in Chile. Compared to all of the other countries we’ve visited so far, Chile definitely has the most wealth. This is easily seen in the abundance of expensive electronic stores, posh clothing stores and stylish home stores that make up the contents of the malls. What was even more surprising was that a lot of the prices on these items were very similar to what we’d pay at home. We were quite happy that we knew we had another volunteering stint set up where our room & board would be covered because we were starting to realize how easy it was to burn through our budget in this country!

The mall is located right beside the ocean, so after we picked up a few essentials from the grocery store (also located next door to the mall), Mac & I had ourselves a little waterfront picnic on the promenade. A staring competition then ensued with a nearby pelican. Spoiler alert: the pelican won.

Coquimbo, Chile

From Antofagasta we took an overnight bus to Coquimbo – a small coastal town just 10 minutes away from the more popular destination of La Serena. We chose to stay in Coquimbo because we had read that the accommodations were cheaper than La Serena. July is the middle of winter here in Chile, and technically ‘low season’ for tourists. This was absolutely true in Coquimbo – Mac & I didn’t see another backpacker/tourist the entire time we were there!

We took a little trip to La Serena on our second day in the area. There are local buses that make the 10 minute trip quite frequently for less than $1, so we hopped on board and took the bus as far as Paqrue Japon. (Yes, that means Japan Park).

The park was constructed in 1994 in commemoration of the 450th anniversary of the founding of the city of La Serena. It was a joint project of Japanese & Chilean mining companies as part of the “twinning agreement” of La Serena and another city in Japan.

This park was very serene and really enjoyable to wander around in. There was a green house with bonsai plants, a huge pond with an island you could reach via a bright red bridge, and a koi pond with ducks & turtles too!

From the park, we made our way downtown and then to the beach. There was a big lighthouse there as well as huge waves in the ocean where several surfers were trying hard to catch “the big one”.

There was certainly more going on in La Serena, but I quite enjoyed our quiet stay in Coquimbo.

We took advantage of the free morning we had on our last day before our bus to Valpo and took in one of the huge sites of the city: Cruz del Tercer Milenio, or The Third Millennial Cross. This almost 100m high cross was built on a hill (in 2001) and gives a 360 degree view of the entire city below.

We took the elevators up to the “T” part of the cross that contained almost wall-to-wall windows and took in the views. There’s also a chapel as well as a museum at this site.