3/31–Equator crossing ceremonies at Sea

Another sea day, which finds us doing our norm:  gym, breakfast in Blu, lecture with Celia on corals, lecture with Gary on the American Plague (Yellow fever) then lunch and finally the equator crossing ceremonies up on deck.  Yes, we actually spent time up on the pool deck!

We manage to grab some good seats at the Mast bar, where we can see the stage pretty well, and settle in with our wine and beer for the festivities.  Of course, first there is the Kiss the Fish ceremony with 2 huge Tunas that they must have bought in Ecuador specifically for the ceremony.  The line is huge and it takes the better part of 45 minutes to get everyone through.  Then they switch up the program from the typical show of Neptune, the doctor, nurse and spaghetti thrown over your head to look like blood and guts, to pool games with the guests versus the staff.  Its fun and funny, they have to do water ballet and then race a raft across the pool. Alejandro get’s thrown into the pool in his suit and merriment reigns for an hour or so, which is a nice diversion.

Then we are back to the gym, to drinks, dinner, a lousy show (honestly, the performers are fantastic, but the material is just awful, disjointed and makes no sense at all).

Back to the cabin, nightcap and bed.

3/30 - Manta, Ecuador

Oh, its hot..  And humid.  Welcome to the equator (well almost).  And its not going to get any better as we move north, that’s for sure. Oh well, we signed up for it. After breakfast (which takes far too long in Blu, but fortunately we have time), we watch the port officials and dock workers try to fashion a gangway out of scaffolding, empty shipping containers and ramps.  Hmmm….this is interesting. We’ve actually docked an hour early, but disembarkation doesn’t begin until close to our scheduled 10am.

Today we are once again taking a Bill and Christy tour and dutifully meet at the Martini bar to check in.  It’s a madhouse because this is also where the gangway is located, but after some milling around, we get organized into our groups, only to find out the line for disembarkation is seriously a mile long. Because of the structure of the gangway, the ship won’t let more than 10 or 20 people off at a time, and then they have to shut it down entirely for some reason.  Thus the line.  We are stretched entirely around the ship – from the gangway door all the way to the theater and back around past the mid ship elevators.  This is ugly.

We spend the time standing in line, chatting with our other tour group members.  Tatiana isn’t with us today, but Nigel and Sue are, and we strike up a conversation, discussing the tour and how our timing might affect it.  As we keep talking it dawns on us that the tour we thought we are on is not the tour we are actually on!  We thought we were going to a couple of museums, the panama hat factory and a cevicheteria for lunch. But Nigel is talking about the rainforest, and definitely not the hat factory, which he specifically didn’t want to do, and which starts a flurry of email research and printed tour overviews before we finally figure out we had wanted to do the museum tour, but it was full and chose this tour as our back up plan!  Surprise!  Oh, and we had to choose lunch options, which Ed has apparently done but we don’t have any recall of it.  The menu isn’t ceviche, but it looks decent enough with empanadas, soup and mahi mahi.  Hey, what the heck, it’s a tour in a new city for us, a good group of people and we’re game.

Unfortunately, though, the disembarkation is playing havoc with our schedule.  We were supposed to meet our guide at 10:30, but it takes us almost an hour and a half to get off the ship, so we don’t end up with our guide or in our van until 11:30 or later, putting a crimp in our timeline.  We meet our guide Frank at the tour counter and walk through the gorgeous brand new cruise terminal to meet our van.  Once crammed inside (and yes, crammed we are in the very last row with the lady in front of us yelling for the A/C – something she will repeat at every stop), we start off on our tour to the rainforest. 

As we drive to our first destination – a drive by of the fish market and shipyard – Frank introduces us to Manta – and to himself.  Manta is the only beach community in Ecuador and the fastest growing city.  It is young, only 96 years old and sustained by the Tuna industry and the secondly, the tourist industry.  There are 12 different beaches in Manta, making it a destination for many local and international tourists.  Frank, as it turns out, is quite the entrepreneur. He is a realtor, so he gives us all the spiel about so many ex-pats coming to live here, and how cheap it is to buy a condominium ($100K), how cheap it is to live here ($3-$4 for a pound of fresh caught fish) and how the taxes are low.  And seeing as chocolate and coffee are huge industries here as well, it should not surprise us that he also represents a coffee producer and a chocolate producer – and has some of his chocolate with him for us to try.  Quite the salesman, but hey, we’ll take the chocolate samples, which are both excellent.    

After pointing out the new mall and some new commercial buildings we reach the fish market which is pretty big, but because we are so late, Frank says it isn’t worth stopping as all the activity is much earlier in the morning.  The shipyard turns out to be ships in various stages of building and rebuilding sitting right alongside the road on the water’s edge.  It looks totally haphazard, like there are just a bunch of ships that grounded there, but it is a live shipyard with work being done on a large ship at the beginning of the yard.  After that, we are off into the mountains to visit the rainforest with a pitstop in San Lorenzo – one of the pretty beaches along the coast, and also where turtles come to hatch.

The drive through the mountains takes about 30 minutes, as we wind our way through little villages and up into tall hillsides covered in lush green foliage with occasional gashes of white limestone showing through (we are guessing those are rock slides that cut felled the trees and left an indelible mark on the hillside). Frank recounts a story about the town called El Aromo, or The Smell.  The town got its name because the houses are all built of adobe, and the residents used donkey “poop” as part of the cement that held the adobe bricks together.  It doesn’t smell now, supposedly, but we’ll never know as we drive through in our airconditioned van.

Climbing to the top elevation of 575m we find ourselves in the rain forest micro-climate, which has been turned into a National Research Forest and protected from development.  You can own property up here, but the government controls what you do with it requiring 50% of the property to remain green and restricting the number of people who can live on the land, determined by the size of the property. 

We drive past the entrance to the forest, and a trail head that Frank says would take 2 hours to trek – which of course we aren’t going to do. But he keeps talking about trekking, and where we will trek, which of course, not knowing we were on this tour, we had no idea we would be doing – but the A/C lady’s comment to Ed about another person being brave and wearing flip flops now makes sense.  Oops.  Hope we aren’t “trekking” on too many natural trails!

Driving out of the forest and back down to sea level, we are treated with stunning views up and down the coast.  We pass a huge turtle statue and the San Lorenzo sign (where a Celebrity tour is exiting their bus to take pictures) and drive into San Lorenzo proper, which is a small little town with a sandy strip of asphalt along the seashore.  It’s cool and ruddy in a shoddy sort of beach way.  There is a little hotel right on the beach and lots of cafes and restaurants under palapas, and turtle nests up and down the beach.  We end up going to one restaurant for a bathroom break, and afterward get a big beer to share while we chat with Frank and the others are wandering around the beach looking at turtle nests.

Next we drive back up into the hills to walk the Sendera El Faro, the lighthouse trail.  On the way Nigel (who is a birdwatcher) spots owls on a tree on the side of the road.  We couldn’t believe it – they are small, grey little creatures – and we all thought they were only nocturnal.  Cool.  As we get to the trailhead, Frank assures us we are only going halfway because we don’t have the time to make it all the way to the lighthouse and back – which is fine really, the views from the halfway point are spectacular – and quite frankly, most of our group wouldn’t make it the whole way (since about 1/3 don’t even come as far as the lookout point with us).  The trail starts out fairly steeping with a long set of stairs, but the climb is worth it for the views looking north over the beautiful undeveloped Pacific Ocean coastline (where you can see the erosion that is taking its toll on the beaches).  Climbing slightly more, then leveling off, we come across a ridge that gives us long views of San Lorenzo and the beach communities that dot the coast going south on side, and the lighthouse atop a craggy mountain on the other.  There is an incredible breeze up here too – one I wouldn’t mind staying in for a while before returning, but because of our delay, we are sort of on a speed tour with not much time to rest.  Of we go for our real rainforest trek.

Back in the van (with A/C lady yelling to turn it up), we retrace our steps from this morning, stopping at the entrance to the national park and the Sendero Pasaje del Mono trail.  This is the monkey trail where not only will we see monkeys, we will also get lessons in the types of plants and trees here, as well as look for tarantulas.  Yes, tarantulas.  Hmm….didn’t really sign up for that one, but, when in Ecuador…..

We have an adorable naturalist guide named Carlos who has the greatest personality, and even though he speaks only a little English (so Frank translates), his passion and knowledge just shines through.  He takes us down the trail stopping here and there to show us different trees and flowers. We smell a medicinal plant used for colds and fevers, then pick some cilantro (that looks just like the weeds in our flower beds!), then to the Tagua tree (fake ivory tree) for a demonstration of the nuts that are carved into different figurines.  Carlos shows us the ripe nut (which is sort of like a fruit and you can eat it), then the harder nut that is peeled and carved, and finally a neat little carved elephant made from the nut.  We have something like that at home from another trip, we think.

Finally it is time to go on a hunt for tarantulas. Carlos finds a tarantula hole and tries to coax the spider out by poking a little stick down the hole.  We all look on expectantly – with a little horror thrown in – but nothing happens.  Carlos thinks that the tarantula is sleeping because he’s come out a lot today (obviously for other groups before us).  Moving on he explains the uses of the Bird of Paradise flower – for ointments, remedies, and of course for Carlos to play a hummingbird or Pinocchio by placing one of the long flower petals on his nose. Precious.

As the trail moves deeper into the forest, we begin to hear the monkeys baying in the distance.  They are howler monkeys, thus the “howling” and they sound pretty fierce, but Carlos explains that is their territorial sound, the male monkeys protecting their harem, and as long as we stay back from them, all will be well.  Nigel spots a bat hawk up in a tree, and then Frank walks across a poisonous snake!  He is out front and suddenly Carlos yells, “Stop!”  Frank freezes looking down, then Carlos yells, “go, go, go",’ which makes Frank run to the bridge ahead.  Turns out there is a very poisonous Equis (x) snake on the side of the path.  Carlos chases it out and across the path with a stick, and we see it has a baby tarantula in its fangs.  Yikes!  Then Carlos starts taking everyone’s phone to take pictures of the thing.  Really?  We’re all ready to run, and here he is shoving cameras at the snake.  At least we got good photos of the thing!

After the snake scare, we wind our way down crudely constructed stairs to the monkey viewing area.  We are only going halfway on the trail, but it is enough to see all the monkeys – and boy do we.  They are really close to us on the trees, closer than Frank has ever seen them, actually.  We all take turns coming down the stairs from the viewing platform to watch mothers and babies climbing all over, jumping from branch to branch, and playing around.  Much more successful than our tiger safari!

Now comes the hard part, climbing back uphill to the van.  It’s actually not that bad a climb, and can count for our afternoon exercise!  There are various levels of moans and groans, but we all make it successfully to the van and head off to lunch. We arrive at Las Heliconias, a hostel and restaurant, fairly quickly and settle onto the upstairs balcony for at a series of long tables for lunch.  We end up at the end of the table with Frank, so we “serve” everyone else by passing plates down the table. First the plantain cheese empanada, which is totally different and really good – mashed plantains forming the empanada “crust” over melted cheese.  Next is chicken soup or creamy vegetable, which I pass on, because I simply can’t eat soup and then a meal, but which everyone likes (I did steal a piece of chicken out of Ed’s soup, and it was very tasty), then either chicken curry or Mahi Mahi with coconut sauce (we had the fish which was excellent) and for dessert, wet chocolate cake (which wasn’t exactly wet – but we found out later that the first set of cakes we passed down the table were doused in some sort of syrup and completely soaked, where as our cakes had icing and no syrup, but were still very good and filling). IN between the courses, we have a great conversation with Frank, learning about his family (his mom and sister live in Utah), his passion for surfing (he told us upfront that he was going to surf today, but changed his mind to take this tour) and chatting about his life, work and plans.  He’s a pretty put together guy, and a thoroughly enjoyable lunch partner.

Stuffed to the gills, we take a bathroom break before climbing back into the van. As a group we’ve decided to pass on the Museum Eloy Alfaro, which is the president’s house.  Frank has given us an explanation of it while we were eating, and while it sounds great, we wouldn’t have enough time to do it justice before heading back to the ship.  So, instead, Frank takes us on a tour of one of the gated communities he represents (because he has the gate code!).  The community still have plenty of lots available and there are plenty of condos and houses in various stages of development.  It’s a lovely community on the waterfront, and it is fun to ride all around the little lanes as Frank expounds on the virtues of owning a place here (his company can broker the purchase, and then manage the rentals for you).  If we had more time, he would have taken us through one of the units, but as it is, we need to hustle back to the terminal for all aboard.

Returning to the port, Frank takes us through another area of town where there are bars and restaurants and a Wyndham hotel and then we are back.  We bid farewell to our surfer/entrepreneur guide, after snagging his business card, and head into the terminal to shop for Tagua earrings and little figurines.

Then its the shuttle and the ship, and a blissful shower, drinks with Nigel and Sue, dinner and then a show, which we left early to attend the equator crossing ceremony up on deck.  The equator crossing ceremony is basically just a countdown to the crossing at 10:15, then the dancers perform, but we can’t really see them even when we stand up on the stack of lounge chairs where we were sitting.  So, we head down to the cabin for a night cap and bed.

3/29–We saw a whale!

Actually we saw a few whales and a ton of dolphins, some of which were jumping incredibly high out of the water.   Oh, and seals.  Lots of seals! It was a beautiful, sunny sea day filled with hours of staring out across the ocean looking for wildlife.  Makes a day pass pretty quickly, I have to admit.

Otherwise, our normal sea day of gym, breakfast, cappuccino, balcony sitting, looking for whales and dolphins, followed by lunch, more balcony sitting, gym, beer and wine runs, dinner and then a movie (A Small Favor, sort of silly and weird). Then a nightcap on the balcony.  Another day done – tomorrow Ecuador.

3/28–Lima

Today is the first of 4 tours we have booked with Bill and Christy, a couple on Cruise Critic who have organized multiple tours in every single port of call (and they’ve been on the ship since Buenos Aires).  They are amazing – the spreadsheet they have to keep track of everything is a work of art on its own – but the fact that they’ve organized all this, have booked the tours, appointed group leaders then have meetings before we all leave the ship – fabulous. 

We are on tour 5 in group 9, and we meet up with all our other tour mates in the passport lounge where Bill organizes us in our groups and gives us our instructions (don’t be late, sit in your same seats on the bus, etc.).  He’s gotta be a travel agent or tour guide or scout master or something in the real world!  Bob is our group leader and we follow him off the ship onto the port shuttle that will take us into Lima, dropping us off at a plaza near a shopping mall where our tour guide will pick us up.

The ride takes about 30 minutes in heavy traffic – and it’s only 7:30am.  There are long lines of people waiting or buses and little vans on the side of the street, and more people walking around.  This is a busy, busy city.  Arriving at the plaza, it is awash with cruise passengers, tour guides and taxi drivers all looking out for customers and clients.  Crazy!  It all gets sorted out rather quickly – our guides all have signs with Bill’s name and a group number, so that’s easy enough. Unfortunately we hit a little bump in the road when our tour guide hasn’t shown up yet.  A guide has our sign to organize us, but he’s just holding the sign.  It takes a little while, but finally we have our guide (although, this guy was standing with Bill for a while, and then gave him a card or something out of his wallet, so I’m sort of convinced he’s the back up guide – but he’s ours for the day nonetheless). Yanny (pronounced that way, I’m sure it isn’t spelled that way) takes control and marches us down the street to our waiting van and driver, Luis, (which btw has the number 8 in the window, which I know will sow confusion down the road) and we head off into the traffic.

Our first stops today will be the 2 main plazas of Lima, then we will go for a “food” tour at 3 different restaurants.  A little bit of cultural history and a whole lot of food culture – our kind of tour.  Ok, so, for simplicity’s sake, I’m just going to list what we do next, because, it is exactly the same tour we took 3 years ago in Lima – and I’ve already written all about it and posted all the same pictures we are about to take on the aPRIL 14, 2016 blog entry (helpful link here).

• First stop: Plaza San Martin for the Hotel Bolivar (where we take a restroom break), then wander through the plaza listening to the same story about the llama on the statue’s head – but different from last time, this time Yanny and another guide are stopped by the police and asked for their IDs and questioned (we later find out it is because unlicensed guides are a big problem in the city and the police are trying to crack down on them – we all figured it was just graft and the copy wanted a pay out, but Yanny says no).

• Second stop:  Plaza de Armas for the great architecture with the beautifully bright yellow facades, the president’s house, the mayor’s house and the main cathedral.  Then to the Chocolate museum for chocolate tea, then to the oldest bar, El Cordero. 
• This is where the tour differs from last time.  This time instead of parading through it, we actually stop here for our first set of appetizers.  We are shown to a back room where we can all sit together (and away from the regular patrons) and are served Butifarro (ham sandwiches) and Causa (a stacked dish made up of mashed corn on the bottom and top with chicken salad in the middle) and the beverage of our choice, including beer. Very nice and very fun diversion. 

• Then it is on to the Saint Francis cathedral for the catacombs museum, which again is the exact same as last time.  Although this time there are hundreds and hundreds of people lined up waiting to get inside the cathedral.  It is because it is the 28th, and on the 28th of every month people come to pray to St. Jude, the patron of lost causes.  The line is crazy, wrapping back and forth 5 or 6 times in the courtyard outside the church, most of those waiting with flowers in their hands.  Yanny says we can go inside the cathedral without waiting in line, and we do eventually squeeze our way past the waiting pilgrimage.  But the chapel for St. Jude is right next to the front door, so it is still jam packed inside, plus there is a mass being said, so we don’t last very long – 2 quick pictures (that I don’t even feel comfortable about) and we are squeezing our way back out the door.  Phew.  What a scene!

Once we all manage to extricate ourselves from the cathedral, we hop back in the van to head to Miraflores, the modern area of town to go see, of all things a pyramid.  Huh?  We had no idea there was a pyramid in Lima!  But, indeed there is – in the middle of Miraflores with a tall glass office building as a back drop.  Huaca Pucllana is dated from sometime between 20 AD and 700 AD, built as a ceremonial center with tombs inside.  Most of the structures have been destroyed as Lima has expanded into the Chancay and Lurin valley areas, but this pyramid remains, as I said, surrounded by modern buildings  The existing complex sits on 6 hectares (15 acres) of land, towering above us in stark ecru adobe, looking very Mayan – but I guess really Aztecan.  It is pretty amazing to think that more of these structures existed in the city but were destroyed as the population moved outward from the city. Even though this pyramid was conserved it is still smaller than the original structure which is estimated to have been as large as 18 hectares (45 acres).

After a few moments of picture taking, we are escorted in the Huaca Pucllana restaurant for our next round of appetizers.  Talk about a great venue!  We are seated outside, underneath a tent roof, adorned with wooden tree trunks as supports, overlooking the pyramid.  It’s white linen table cloths with black clad waiters who serve us an excellent sweet pepper roll to go along with parmesan encrusted scallops, fried shrimp (minced) wrapped around crab claws, beef hearts, and – are you ready? – Cuy!  Yes, Cuy – or Guinea Pig – the Peruvian delicacy.  We can’t believe it! We've been talking about it, and guessing whether we’d be served any – but we’d always figured no way would they do that – and here it is – all laid out beautifully atop a fried plantain chip.  Oh yummo!  Everything is absolutely delicious (well, I don’t know about the beef heart – I didn’t even go there!), and the Cuy is wonderfully prepared – not like anything we had in Cusco – this is fried and crispy and reminds you of pork belly.  Totally excellent!

Our last stop of the day is at Punto Azul – a local seafood restaurant.  Here ceviche is the specialty, but they have tons of other seafood offerings as well.  Yanny says tourists don’t normally come here, and that there are no reservations so locals can wait 20 or 30 minutes just for a table.  But of course, he’s worked something out for us!  After arriving, we make our way through the throngs at the door and end up having to wait in the stairwell off the restrooms for 5 or 10 minutes until our table is ready. We are seated upstairs in a little room where we make up the bulk of the guests and treated to a fantastic seafood meal.  Ed and I decide to split a ceviche mixto while he orders his Pulpo Emparrillado (grilled octopus).  Others around the table order shrimp in an almost curry type sauce and parmesan baked fish or scallops. There are corn nuts on the table (oh joy!) plus we can have the drink of our choice – a lot of folks got the Pisco Sour to try, but I stuck with white wine, Ed with beer).  The food comes out in heaping portions (just as Yanny promised).  It all looks so good, and everyone seems to enjoy their choices.  I know we enjoyed ours!  The ceviche mixto is chock full of tasty white fish, shrimps, some octopus slices and clam pieces, all in an excellent traditional lemon-lime juice/sauce.  There are huge pieces of yummy corn (I’m guessing choclo) and tons of onions to give it just the right amount of flavor.  Ed’s octopus is huge and perfectly cooked over a bed of what appears – and tastes – like potato salad.  Wow – what a spread.

We manage to finish all the protein on our plates, but there is definitely no dinner in our future – por supuesto!  What a great tour! 

We all groan our way back to the van, where we bid Yanny farewell and go with Luis back to the port.  The drive is pretty, along the coast most of the way, then inland again, past the new soccer stadium being built for the Pan-American games, and along the same roads we took leaving this morning.  Traffic picks up a little at the port, and while we are waiting to cross the road to go into the port area, we sit outside what appears to be a private residence with a steel frame pool outside.  We can’t decide if this is someone’s personal pool sitting in the street, or if they are selling the pools? If it is personal, it takes living on the street to a whole new level!

At the port entrance, after some lengthy discussion including ID examination, Luis is turned away, to which the entire bus says “uh oh.”  But, after a few minutes of unease, turns out to be fine as we pull into the main entrance to the port and are greeted with the huge line of passengers waiting to board the shuttle to the ship.  Phew – no worries now!

The wait turns out to be not so bad, and we are on the bus and back to the ship in a relatively short time.  We don’t even have to stand in line to board the ship, because virtually everyone on the 3 buses in front of us has run to the little souvenir tents that have been set up portside – so while they shop – we board.

Just in time for our evening routine to begin!  Although tonight we are varying the routine, by not going to Blu for dinner, but heading up to the buffet for a salad. Period.  Then skipping the show, I nap, Ed reads, and then head out for a late night music show where Sashi, an excellent solo guitarist/singer, performs a spectacular rendition of Adele.  She has an amazing voice and talent, and now we are scoping her out in all her venues across the ship.

And that is the end of another good evening aboard the Celebrity Eclipse.

3/26 & 27–Two days at sea

Standard routines begin in earnest..  Gym in the morning, reading in Cafe al Bacio with cappuccinos, morning lecture with and adorable biologist who gives almost theatrical presentations about whales and dolphins (she is truly a doll – and totally informative), lunch, afternoon reading and blogging, afternoon gym, bar rounds for drinks to store in the cabin, pre-dinner drinks at the Passport bar (no way are we going to the Sky Lounge, it is super jam packed with over 1100 Elite and Elite Plus aboard), dinner, show (sometimes) then balcony for night cap and bed.

Oh, and a daytime show of the Ladies of the Eclipse – all the female singers aboard together in one show (these cruise lines are so incestuous – they did this on the NCL Epic for the first time – and now here it is on Celebrity Eclipse).  No matter where they stole it from, it is an excellent show with really talented women, who we can see around the ship for the next 10 days or so.

And that’s that.  Two lovely relatively cool days at sea, both sort of overcast, in waters so calm it’s like glass out there.  May all our sea days be so lovely.

3/25–La Serena

We have nothing planned for today – just sort of wandering in town and then a ceviche lunch at a restaurant Ed has found.  Our morning is leisurely, we don’t dock until 10, so we putz around at the gym, at breakfast, then in Cafe al Bacio for coffee before getting off.  The ship is cleared and we decide to wait a little while to get off, because we have plenty of time to kill before 1pm when the restaurant opens.  But, as we normally do, we get antsy and decide to leave a little after 10am, which in the end turns out to be a very good decision.

While the disembarkation announcements have said we can’t bring any food products off the ship and we will go through security at the port exit, they didn’t really explain that everyone has to be funneled through this one little building with 1 scanner and a couple of guys going through bags.  And I mean everyone – including all the tours that are heading for their buses.  And when you walk off the ship, the only signs point to shore excursions, not exits.  So, we walk along the ship in the direction of the shore excursions, without anyone helping with actual instructions, until we bottle neck into this mass of barely moving people.  We can’t decide if this is solely shore excursions or not, so I find a couple of tour gals to ask, and they confirm everyone must go through this line and security, so back we go to wait it out – actually following a couple of crew members who seem to know what they are doing and skirt a huge portion of the line (when in doubt, always follow the crew!).

It takes a good 15 minutes to get through the security line, but once we are free, it’s an easy walk outside the port and into the main town of Coquimbo.  Because we are taking Uber into La Serena, we decide to walk a couple of blocks away from the port to have a specific address (in front of the Santander bank) for a pick up.  That works well enough (except for the Armored truck that pulls up onto the sidewalk blocking our view of the street – oh – and the police car with his lights on trying to stop another car for something), and our driver does actually find us easily enough.  He speaks little to no English, but we are getting used to that, and when he asks us if we want to go the Beach way (slow way) or the Route way (fast way), I tell him rapido, which he doesn’t understand.  But finally he says La Playa is lento – and that’s my favorite word!  So I tell him no, the Ruta way.  Yay!  Spanish 101 to the rescue.

20 minutes later, he drops us at Plaza de Armas, and begin our strolling.  Of course it is Monday, so the museum we wanted to visit is closed (we knew this before we left), so we just wander around the plaza with it’s lovely little fountain and cathedral in the background.  We visit the cathedral, which is lovely with exquisite stained glass windows, but otherwise very basic. 

Then we walked up the busy retail street, with every store you can imagine, to the La Recova craft market, only to realize we had been here on our previous visit. We didn’t find anything we wanted then, and we don’t find anything there today either.  Next we head back through town to visit the first of two parks we’ve mapped out.  It’s a chilly, overcast day, which actually makes walking around very pleasant since we aren’t overheating, although it does make picture taking a little challenging and dark.

The first park is under construction for what looks like a large playground, and so obviously closed.  The railway station that looked promising in the tour books turns out to be not so promising in real life, just a red building across a large road and attached to a gigantic mall.  We don’t even bother crossing the street and turn our sights toward Koko No Niwa, the Japanese garden around the next corner.  Following Google maps almost gets us in trouble, as they show the entrance up a hill and around another corner, when in actuality, the entrance is right across form the train station.  Fortunately, our path takes us right by it, so we abandon Google and pay our entrance fee at the correct location.

A sweet guard tells us in broken English where the best view point is located, and after a quick bathroom break, we head in that direction.  Of all the things you think you would find in this little Chilean town, a fabulous Japanese garden is not one of them – and this place is amazing.  Begun in 1988 as a way to boost the interchange of culture between Japan and Chile  the park took 6 years to complete and was inaugurated in August of 1994, marking the 450th anniversary of La Serena. The garden receives over 140,000 visitors each year, and is a place for “contemplation and relaxation as well as one that encourages tourism,” as loosely translated from the informational sign at the beginning of the path.

And truly, it is all those things, a serene little corner carved out of a busy city area (it’s sandwiched between the train station and a major boulevard).  The lawn, plants and little garden areas are all beautiful and very well done.  The path the guard has shown us does indeed take us up to the best viewing area in the park – with a fabulous 180 degree view of the lake, waterfall and pagodas dotting the landscape.  We are in no rush, taking our time looking out across the green expanse, messing with our phone cameras and remote clicker, and generally enjoying the peace and quiet here in this little slice of ecologically friendly land mass.

We circle back down to the lake level, watching ducks and geese wander about, then explore a hot house type building with bonsai plants and trees.  We find huge Koi in the pond, and lovely sitting areas in the pagodas, along with a great temple statuette for Sunny.  We probably end up spending at least an hour wandering around, before we head back into the city in search of our lunch spot:  Cevicheria Jack Fish Sushi and Rock.

Again, we take our time to walk the 1/4 mile from the park to Jack Fish, but still arrive a little bit early.  We park ourselves on the chairs in the little outdoor eating area to wait when another guy just walks in the door.  We can’t tell if he is a customer or works there, so we just hang out, when a guy, who turns out to be the owner, comes out with menus. Oh! We’ll come inside then, entering into the coolest little space we’ve seen for a restaurant.  Small upholstered booths all set with traditional Japanese utensils against a backdrop of psychedelic looking murals, chalkboard menus and heavy metal band posters.  Perfect!  The menu is a multi-page homage to heavy metal bands – all the ceviche is named after a band – and the background art is probably similar to the Megadeath artwork.  Besides the multitude of ceviche, there are tons of dishes to choose from.  So many, I haven’t a clue what to get. There is sushi, sashimi, tons of different rolls and main courses – and it all looks great. When the owner comes over to take our order, I’m looking at the cream cheese rolls (yep, cream cheese on the outside of a sushi roll, sounds like a plan to me!), but I can’t decide which one.  There is a tuna roll with mango and something called “palta” which is totally unfamiliar to me – turns out it is avocado!  Done deal. That’s all I need to hear!  Ed orders the Motorhead ceviche with Corvina, Pulpo (octopus, of course) and camarones (shrimp).  The owner is all happy because he also happens to be wearing a Motorhead shirt today – and in honor of Ed’s smart meal choice, he also puts on a Motorhead video for our listening pleasure. 

Our drinks arrive, and with a flourish, he fills up my wine glass to the absolute tippy top – while saying, in my Chile, this is how we fill up a glass, not those little teeny pours where you keep asking for more, more, more.  We already knew we liked this guy, now he’s forever our (at least my) best friend!  So, we aren’t too terribly surprised when the food comes out in huge portions.  8 cream cheese rolls, huge and creamy and absolutely fantastic, and a monstrous bowl of ceviche for Ed which he manages to finish as do I my rolls (I don’t know how, it’s a ton to eat!).  We hang out a bit longer, listening to the music, finishing the massive glass of wine and Ed’s beer, then paying the tab and wandering back outside to find an Uber back to the port.

We walk up the street a ways, to get out of the heavy traffic around the restaurant and the hospital across the street, so we can be situated on one of the main thoroughfares out of town.  This strategy works pretty well and we have an Uber in a couple of minutes, who with great music playing in the background, quickly gets us out of La Serena and back to Coquimbo.  As we approach the port, we pass some sea lions and then get into the pier area where there are lots of little seafood restaurants lining the dock.  The driver asks if it is all right to drop us off outside the Port, because Uber is illegal there, and we of course are fine with that.  We even tell him to just stop right where we are, we don’t mind a walk along the pier, which sort of surprises him (I guess he’s not used to people who don’t mind being dropped off away from their desired location). 

We pop out of the car by the restaurants and wander our way down the seafront to the Port.  We still have a good amount of Chilean Pesos that we would like to spend, but don’t’ want any more food, that’s for sure, so we figure we’ll look around the little artisan market by the port.  But, along the way we see this guy sitting all alone a ways from the market with paintings made on small pieces of glass.  He’s got his paints and everything all set up right there, and as we begin to look at the paintings on display, he starts to show us how he paints with his fingers on the glass, and then puts details in with his paint brushes.  Totally cool!  (And this time I even !managed to get a photo or 2 of him actually painting!)  He also makes the little metal stands he has with the pictures, there is a coil of metal wire in his bag that he uses to fashion the metal.  We ask how much, and he says 1 for $3, 2 for $5.  No way!  These are really quite nice – and as an added bonus, he shows us how they are 2 sided, because the painting shows through the back of the glass.  No question, 2 of these are coming home with us.  And when I ask about the price in Pesos, it’s even better at 3000 Pesos.  Done – and we are now the proud owner of 2 really cool paintings on glass, hand made metal stands included.

Good thing we got there when we did too, because as we are leaving he is crowded with buyers – guess we started a good thing!  Walking back to the port, we stop to gaze out over the marina waters with all the different fishing boats moored there, then wander through the market, finding nothing of any value to us.  So, with Pesos still in our pocket, we get back aboard to start our journey further up the coast of South America.