Beach Bums in Chile

After making it through Mendoza wine country and the Bohemian paradise of Valparaiso, it was time for some beach therapy.  Our crew made two stops, one at La Serena and one at Bahia Inglesa.  Both spots are small beach towns on Chile's Pacific Coast.

Not a bad view.

La Serena is the larger town and it is also the town that is undergoing more development.  In fact, HBomb, Anne and Mark rented an apartment in a new development on the beach in La Serena.  Apparently, a lot of people bought vacation homes there and then rent them out, making for stiff competition in the rental market and a very reasonable price for an apartment on the beach.

"El Faro," as seen from the playground on the beach.

The town of La Serena is apparently ironically named.  The city is beautiful and a nice place to relax and hit the beach now, but it's history is anything but "serene."  It is considered to be Chile's second oldest city, being founded at or around 1544, but since then has been completely destroyed by native peoples, city war occupiers, pirates led by Sir Francis Drake, and a big time earthquake in the 18th century.  Each time the city was rebuilt.

The big landmark in La Serena was actually just outside the apartment our trio rented.  Called "el faro" - the lighthouse - this structure is actually relatively new (built in the 1950s), but is on the register of historic places in Chile nonetheless.

Slide or get off the pot, kid!

Of course, none of this history mattered to the HBomb.  He was a big fan of La Serena, but mostly because of the pretty sweet playground equipment they had set up on the beach, which came equipped with other kids to play with.

Sandcastles in the sand.....

The beaches at Bahia Inglesa were equally clean and well maintained, but HBomb was less impressed due to the lack of playground equipment.

 And although the beach was beautiful, the water was frigid, so other than dipping their toes in it, our crew stayed out of the water for the most part.

sand in the hair.  why not?

Sea shells by the sea shore.

The beaches in both locations were fantastic.  They were clean and not crowded.  The towns were modern but not overdeveloped.  However, this might be the end of that.  Both towns had several projections under construction during our visit.  In 10-15 years, these little gems on the Pacific will be crawling with tourists spending time at their summer place.  However, today, they are still small, out of the way beaches.

During their stay at Bahia Inglesa, the trio stayed at a Bungalow that was literally on the beach.  Anne, Mark and Henry could hear the waves as the tide came in and went out.

The lone downside to staying in a Bungalow in small town Chile was the mosquitoes.  Yuck.

To deal with the challenges that the mosquitoes presented, our trio sought out - and found - the largest bottle of locally-grown wine they could find.  The sizes were, apparently, 750 ml, 1 L, too large and ridiculously large.  We eventually decided that the large bottle fit in the ridiculously large category.  It did, in fact, make the bug bites hurt a little less.

a bottle of the Gentleman for reference.