Ahead of schedule we arrived in La Serena at 5am instead of 9am. This caught us off guard as we were both asleep. Slightly dishevelled we got our bearings and headed for the first hostel. Like San Pedro most places we tried were fully booked due to the holiday. We loitered around on the streets like professional travellers waiting for places to open - more like tramps actually. We managed to find a possible place to stay in Maria's Hostel. Just in case they didn't have enough room we reserved a room for the following two nights in a Hostel down the road. To kill time in the morning until we had received confirmation from Maria's we set off into town to find a launderette to process our now large bag of smelly washing. We didn't find anything open due to the bank holiday but we had a little nose around soaking up the culture. The weather was cold and overcast and we felt a little unprepared in our flip flops and shorts - true Brits abroad.

We finally got confirmation and dumped our bags in our room around 12.30pm. Feeling settled and slightly washed out after a long night and morning we navigated into town to buy some food and to take our washing to the local launderette which had been recommended to us by the Hostel. It's harder to communicate in Chile as nobody speaks English and the Spanish they speak is a lot different to that of the rest of Europe... which can make life tricky. Ju was finding it increasingly frustrating - especially as her hand gestures and theatrical skills combined with talking over me whilst I try to communicate in Spanish with the locals gets us absolutely nowhere. Personally I think it's hilarious and comical trying to mime for what you want - that's part of the fun of travelling. The locals here seem more reserved than in Bolivia and Peru. I had read this was due to General Pinochet's rule. The country has a dark past - most notably Pinochet's caravan of death http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caravan_of_Death. However people fundamentally seem helpful and polite even though they can't speak English. You just have to be cheeky.

After talking about Pinochet and death all afternoon we took light relief in booking a tour for tomorrow to a local valley. Apparently I can lick the windows on the bus as we ride around the countryside looking at 'things'. I had switched off at this point in the day and found it hard to keep my eyes open. I was only interested in the astronomy tour tomorrow evening which we had also booked - I was looking forward to looking at shiny things in the sky instead. Tomorrow should be an easier tour than the last four days. We spent a few hours on Skype catching up with family and friends before cooking tea. The evening consisted of bag packing, blog writing and Ju applying one of a thousand creams she has in her ruck sac. No tv tonight - so I am going to catch up with current affairs on the web.