A Quiet Sunday

We settled in for a quiet night at Alex and Jennifer’s house and the next morning – Sunday – we were ready to get out and see La Serena.  It being Sunday, downtown was closed (much of the world works differently than the American Model...).  So we headed to the mall with the excuse that we needed to find a new power cable for Jennifer’s computer (the laptop that I’m typing on right now – so there’s no suspense, we eventually found a cable...).

To get anywhere from our house we flag down a collective taxi - a "collectivo".  These taxis run throughout La Serena and we can catch them just a block away.  They have relatively regular routes and this neighborhood is serviced by the number 70.  When a taxi approaches on the street we hold up the number of fingers that we have riders and if they have room, they stop.  Each collectivo can carry 4 people - they're small 4-door sedans.  The ones here run downtown via the mall, bus station, and other popular locations along the way – the passengers might all be heading to different destinations, but all in the same general direction.  The driver takes them to where they want to go.  To get home you watch for a number 70 and hope he has room.

 

The mall was very nice – it has all the stores one would expect and lots of people.  We wandered around, I tried to find a wifi connection (rumor had it that the mall was wifi equipped, but I didn’t have much luck), and we settled for a couple cups of ice cream as we watched the other shoppers.

 

After returning home we had an excellent Chilean dinner – beef, bread, Chilean onion salad, olives, corn, tomatoes, and vino.  Alex was the organizer of the event and the results were very tasty.