Another excellent journey with Tur Bus and we arrived in La Serena on time at around 6pm. Our hostel, El Punto only five minutes walk from the bus station, was a colourful traditional Spanish style house with a big courtyard. After quickly settling into our room, and with few suggestions from the reception about places to eat we set off into the nearby town centre to explore for ourselves. La Serena looked a really nice with a mixture of narrow old lanes and wide boulevards, floodlit churches and statues aplenty. We soon found a beer at a Schoperia (a place that sells beer on tap) which in La Serena at least also seem to feature loud juke boxes. Afterwards we found a splendid restaurant where we feasted on an excellent parrilladas (a BBQ grill of various meats and sausages, including in this case black pudding), starters, deserts and a bottle of good Chilean red, all for £15 for the two of us, We gave this as a recommendation to the hostel as they seemed to be lacking good suggestions in the nearby town centre.We only had two full days here and aside from breaking the journey north, part of the reason for stopping was to visit the Elqui Valley and Isla Damas. The following morning saw us off to Elqui Valley with our guide Marcelino. The tour was interesting as Marcelino described all the fruits and vegetables that are grown in the lush, fertile lower valley despite a very low rainfall. Some plants, including eucalyptus trees introduced about 100 years ago from Australia, have developed the ability to absorb water from the morning sea mists through their leaves. The valley is also a major producer of grapes - for wine, for the table and for the famous pisco (a very nice local spirit). We paid a visit to small family run pisco distillery where we sampled both the legal and illegal strength brew, and naturally we came away with a bottle. The tour also included lunch at a restaurant where food was cooked outside in little solar heated ovens, a visit to the school of Gabrielle Mistral (who we referred to in an earlier blog), and the towns of Vicuna and Monte Grande. We met some really nice people on the trip including Carrie from an island in the Seattle Sound, who by coincidence has a pet Llama called Eddie!The highlight of our visit to La Serena however was the following day's trip to Isla Damas, where once again we met up with Carrie. Our guide, Marcelo took us north a good few kilometres and then towards the sea across a country track where we saw our first sightings of some of Chile's wildlife - guanacos, Chilean ibis, an owl, wild donkeys, turkey vultures - this is what we wanted to see. The weather was a little cool and overcast as we jumped into a surprisingly small boat for a 45 minute/13 km sea journey to the islands of Choros and Damas. Those of us on the port side had to hold a large polythene sheet up and over our heads to protect us from the wind and inevitable spray. But it was worth getting there because our journey along the coast of Isla Choros provided great sightings of various types of cormorant, Boobies, Humboldt Penguins, Sea Lions, dolphins, sea otters, petrels, etc. We also had the opportunity to enjoy an hour or so ashore on Isla Damas. It was so quiet and peaceful and the spring flowers and their scent were a joy to behold. From the highest point on the island we had great views up and down the coast and across to the towering high Andes. Both tours were very good and both guides were knowledgeable, very informative and spoke excellent English.The day of our departure gave us some time at last to explore La Serena. It's a lovely wee town with beautiful buildings and squares and its style and layout was much more attractive than we'd been led to believe - we probably would have liked to have had another couple of days here had we not already booked our onward bus to San Pedro de Atacama. After an enjoyable day wandering around town, visiting the free mini zoo and Archaeological Museum, followed by a late lunch we had a slight panic when we couldn't find our bus tickets. Much riffling through our luggage and shouting at one another followed. After M had dashed off to the bus station and with her limited Spanish managed to get the ticket office to reissue tickets, we found the original tickets in the rucksack where we'd already looked several times and where they should have been all along. We were grateful when the bus came in from Santiago and we were safely aboard in our Premium Cama berths and on our way on our overnight seventeen hour journey to San Pedro.Lots of Love E & M xxxx