Day 201: I Only Took My Chance Once

Vina del Mar – La Serena, Chile

I was warned a week ago by a girl from the hostel in Santiago that it’d be best to book dorm room in La Serena in advance. I didn’t heed the advice and realized after a bit of researching that rooms were indeed fully booked out for tonight.

So I was on a 8-hour bus ride to La Serena, not knowing if I would be able to find a place to stay. If it’s any consolation, Sergio said worse comes to worse, I could always take a night bus back to Vina del Mar and I would be welcome to crash at his place again.

I got into La Serena and went to the hostel that I’d like to stay at. They were full. The owner, however, brought me knocking at his neighbour’s houses. One of them indeed had extra room to rent out. I guess I was lucky. For the same amount of price, I got the room all for myself instead of having to share with others. It wasn’t the nicest room but I was just glad I had a roof on top of my head.

As soon as I got settled, I went out to town to find out how I could get to the Mamalluca Observatory the next night. I wasn’t going to procrastinate and wait till the next morning. There’s not that many spaces for the visit and it would have sucked so bad if the spaces were all gone and I had to wait one more night. Apparently, it would have been a lot cheaper if I could DIY this observatory visit. It would involve:

• Taking a bus from La Serena to a neighbouring city Vicuna
• Going to the Mamalluca Observatory office in town
• Reserve a spot there
• Use their private transportation at night to visit the observatory
• Return to Vicuna and stay a night there since there won’t be any buses going back to La Serena at that late an hour
• Taking a bus back to La Serena the next day