Wednesday 3 February 2010

Day 22 Feb 3 - Coquimbo (La Serena), Chile

Coquimbo is a port city with a natural harbour and is capital of the Elqui Province. Rustic, but maybe a little run down too, homes climb the steep hillside from the harbour. It lies in a valley 9 miles south of La Serena. The steel church near the port was designed by the famous French architect Alexander Gustave Eiffel.

La Serena is the capital of the Coquimbo Region. Founded in 1544, it is the country's third oldest city after Santiago and Arica. Greater Coquimbo is a large conurbation that includes the La Serena and Coquimbo communes and these with the surrounding region has a total population of more than 400,000 inhabitants.

The La Serena region is famous for its exceptionally clear and pure blue skies. They are considered among the best in the world for carrying out astronomical observations and observatories in this region such as Cerro Tololo, Cerro Pachón, Las Campanas and La Silla are some of the most important in the Southern Hemisphere.

The gold and copper industry in the region led to the city's importance as a port around 1840 and many Europeans especially from England settled in Coquimbo. In 1867, it was recognized as a town. It is currently undergoing a process of urban renewal initiated by its mayor, Pedro Velasquez. The city itself, a gritty industrial and shipping centre, is growing quickly, registering a 32.8% growth rate from 1992 to 2002. The population is estimated at about 150,000.

Tourism has started to develop recently. It is an access point for popular beach towns to the south, such as Guanaqueros and Tongoy. The port is still important for shipping, especially fruit and copper from mines in the region. Wine grapes are also grown in the region and some of the neighbouring valleys create the Chilean Muscatel wine, now well known to us all as Pisco. The region also nurtures groves of the cherimyas (custard apples) and many other exotic fruits.

We both seem to have recovered from what ever ailed us. Our enforced diet of wheat brown toast was one way of reducing the calories a bit I suppose.

Thanks Ann for making it a positive in the comments section yesterday!! You're absolutely right Bill, if I want to get a bit Piscoed I should stick to whiskey, yes it's back to the Crow's Nest tonight for a helping or two of Teachers!! And thanks for not mentioned last night's Celtic score. They even showed the Killie goal being scored on CNN ...dirty dogs!! Thanks for all the messages and e-mails re our enforced incarceration.

Now the big news. The Medical Centre phoned us at 8.00 sharp and after checking on our situation said we were both clear to leave the cabin. The quarantine was over....yippee.

We had sailed into Coquimbo harbour at about 7.30 with the pilot boat having just deposited the local pilot on board and the sun had also just risen.

From my early morning trip to the balcony it was obvious that today was certainly much cooler with temperatures nearer the mid-60s than mid-70s.

Sorting out what to wear was going to be our next problem as we were only used to the Florida sunshine and the tropical conditions of the last few weeks or so.

Of course Chile, the longest country in the world with a coast line in excess of 3000 miles, has all the seasons depending where you are.

The north with its arid and very dry Atacama Desert.

The central region with its fertile land ideal for orchards, vineyards, wheat fields and green pastures where sheep and cattle are raised.

Finally the rugged south, a land of islands, forests, mountains and glaciers.

This thin marrow country is hemmed in by the majestic and dominating Andes to the east and the vast blue Pacific Ocean to the west.

We opted for trousers and fleeces although we regretted taking-up this option later.

The ship was welcomed to Coquimbo by a wonderful local group of dancers accomp-anied by a band. They danced for us for over an hour greeting guests as they departed the ship.

While this was going on we were amazed to see our wonderful Hotel Manager, Francois Birarda, organising his army of troops in fumigating the buses waiting to take passengers on tours.

Ten buses were lined up and each one in turn was sprayed and rails and seats cleaned by hand. He was determined to kill any of the IG bugs that might have lurked there.

There was no doubt he acted just like a real Napoleon Bonaparte directing all around him. Well done Françoise. I made a point of leaving a message for him at the Front Office offering my congratulations on the work he had organised so diligently.

This army was fully equipted and well trained with nothing left to chance. The virus would not come back to the ship from this source!!

As we later left the cabin to have some breakfast together in the Lido restaurant, we bumped into the Captain and I took the opportunity to register with him my full felt praise for his Hotel Manager on his hard work and organisation. Captain Albert said he knew that this would be appreciated as Françoise had been under quite some pressure in the last few day.

We met Henk and Lucia (our CSI travel agent hosts) during our rounds this morning and they reported that we had been badly missed from the open bar cocktail party they had held in the Crow's Nest between 7-8. Henk said that he had even considered bringing a few cocktails down to our cabin but had thought better of it when he realised we were in quarantine. Well the thought was there. These frequently held parties are legend and the drinks really flow and a wonderful assortment of hot and cold appetisers are there to help soak up the alcohol.

We took our time preparing some laundry and sorting out other bits and pieced before departing the ship at about 11.00.

We had met up with two other couples who were concerned about going too far from the ship as they had not been 100% either but had not registered with the Medical people. The suggestion therefore was that many people were suffering silently!!

Incidentally I was informed this morning, from a highly reliable source, that ms Veendam (Captain Albert's old ship) was also under a CODE RED and had been for well over two weeks now. It was somewhere in the Antarctic I believe. Lets hope they can kill the bug off well before that amount of time elapses in our case.

We departed the ship and managed to get through the lines of local taxi drivers fighting for our business at highly inflated US$ prices. We declined their offer and headed to the port gates.

We enquired about a local Govenor of the city or Mayor but were disapointed to hear they were not available. Did nobody know we were in town? Instead we went to the the Port Naval Station and requested a meeting with the Commanadant only to be told he was away at the beach with his children. In the event we were happy to meet his deputy and have our photo taken with him, a very pleasant young man indeed. He was as thrilled as we were with the meeting!

We then took a local bus to La Serena ten miles away. On here we had local colours and smells as we headed through highways and byways to the regional capital. The journey lasted an hour and cost us Pesos 480 each or $1.50 verses maybe $15-$20 for the taxi. It is certainly the way to travel if you want to really see the locals.

Once in La Serena we wandered through town where there was a fiesta in progress with some great singing from a local Chilean diva. The town was busy with lots of families and young children around. It was their summer holidays I think.

We took the opportunity to visit a Chilean bank and take some cash out to supplement reserves. Incidentally we got a much much better exchange rate here than we had revived from our US bank in Florida.

It was now time to go for a refreshing Chilean coffee. We found a nice looking coffee shop in town and decided that we would chance the coffee but not the very tempting cream cakes and pastries that the locals took with their coffees. I must say the coffee was delicious and I'm not sure where the beans came from. Was it Columbia, Brazil or something nearer home?

Our last stop was at a really lovely wine store that had all their various Chilean wines laid out by vineyard and then price. What a display. I took a photo of a selection of wines they displayed from the Concha y Toro vineyard that we hope to visit tomorrow. Typically a bottle here cost $5-$7 equivalent.

We soon found our way back to where we could pick the bus back to the ship. This time we noticed that the journey was shown as 'direct' and we returned in half the time it took us to get there. By 3 o'clock we were in the ship's restaurant having a lovely bowl of Filipino chicken and vegetable broth....in fact two bowls each.

The temperatures had steadily climbed during the day and we had certainly over dressed for our day out.

Before sail away the Captain announced that we still had a bit of the 'virus' around and mentioned that some people were taking up to 3 days before notifying the Medical Centre of their problem thus leaving the way open to the virus spreading further. He reported that the diarrhea was very contagious and in most case both parties in a cabin contracted it. Vigilance was the order once again of the day.

At 5.30 sharp the ship's horn sounded three long blasts and we were once again away into the sunset with a warning that later in the evening there might well be an uncomfortable swell for us and the ship to contend with. Ginger tablets for Maria I think!

1 comment:

  1. now , I have a job! To read everyday this superblog! I am on the cruise too! And I am OK ! Magda

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