Valparaiso - La Serena - Arica Chile

Saturday, March 13th

All is quiet here, thank God! We sleep with slacks, shoes, jacket and flashlight right by the bed in case we have to dive out of the room! These poor people, who have to live with this fear. The Chileans believe that there is going to be a much bigger earthquake soon. I hope that this is not true.

Today, after breakfast, our tour guide and driver came to pick us up. It turns out that we are the only ones on the tour. We spent the whole morning driving and walking around Santiago. We got to see everything in the city that we missed while we were in the shopping mall! They returned us to our B&B and we decided to stay in the rest of the day%u226..waiting for Jack%u219s bag to come!!! We ordered Domino%u219s pizza and ate in our room. Ha Ha..Jack%u219s bag came! Too late to try and return all of the bought things t the mall! So now we have double the clothes for the bag! Oh, the joy of travel!! We spent the evening stuffing things into bags..thank God we had decided to take more lighter bags than less fuller bags%u226we don%u219t have to pay to check bags on American!

Sunday, March 14th Valparaison Chile The tour bus came at 9:00am to claim us and we were ready. We loaded the crammed bags into the van and we were off, with another couple, down the highway, through the vineyards, from Santiago to the coast city of Valparaiso. Our tour took us through the city. The guide did a walking tour, but I decided to stay in the van%u226this city is built on hills, very steep hills! We then drove to the adjoining city of Vina del Mar, the beach resort area. We had a nice lunch in a restaurant on the beach, then we were taken to the port for check in. Finally on the ship! Arriving in our %u21Ccloset%u21D, we put some things away and then headed for the %u21Cdrill%u21D. Our bags did all come, eventually, and we unpacked and went to dinner, then early to bed!

Monday, March 15th La Cerena Chile

Up early ! Docked in La Serena (Coquimbo) Chile...We had organized a tour online for today. There are three other couples, two couples from Florida and a couple from Memphis. We were picked up at the pier in a mini van and taken out into the country for the day. It was interesting to see the landscape and visit the little towns. We stopped at a craft market, but most of the stuff was shabby. Many interesting tales were had about "potty" stops, etc! Back to the ship and dinner, the show and to bed.

Wednesday, March 17th Arica Chile

Up at 6:00am, we quickly got ready to meet our group on the pier at 7:45am. We have a very wonderful day today, traveling almost to the Bolivia border through the most extraordinary mountains. We had breakfast and lunch in very strange little places. Had you seen the outsides, you would never have gone in. But our group of four couples, today, were very congenial and we had a great time. We finally returned to the ship about 6:00pm and we are all exhausted, We were all quite queasy, as the turnaround town was at 14,000 feet. We were happy to be back at sea level. Tonight will be a quick snack, a shower and early to bed!