A lot of driving occurs today as well, but not quite as much as yesterday. Eventually, you get to the Elqui Valley which is sunny, beautiful and green. You were a bit skeptical at first because La Serena the town you by the beach that is nearest, it was very cloudy and cold. But, the sun shines more than 330 days a year here in this valley because of the placement of the mountains, and therefore it's beautiful. Finally some green after days and days of desert! You arrive at your hostal called the 'Residencial La Elquina Ambiente Familiar.' This hostal rocks! It has a beautiful courtyard full of flowers and plants, hammocks, swings, tables, etc... And on top of it all a cute little old lady runs it that makes some amazing marmalade for you the next morning.
There are a lot of observatories in the area because of the clear skies. Tonight, you go to the Mamalluca Observatory to take a guided tour. The tour turns out to be quite interesting and your guide lets you take pictures of the moon through one of the telescopes. You also get to see some closeups of a star cluster in the southern cross that your not able to see with the naked eye, Jupiter, and you finally know which stars really make the southern cross (you've been asking lot's of people, and everyone seems to have a different southern cross). At the beginning of this tour, this crazy Asian-American comes up to you because he hears you speaking, and he says "You from America! I from America too. You don't often see lone travelers from America like us." You immediately wonder how long he has actually lived there, because he definitely does not speak very good English, and he has an Asian accent. From then on, he won't leave you alone and persists on talking to you with his face only six inches away from yours. Your tour group thinks this is all rather funny, and for the rest of the trip are cracking American jokes, all brought on by this crazy kid who claims he is from the US. Although, occasionally one of your group does see it fit to rescue you from him by sliding in front of him and closing him off from the triangle of conversation, which was really nice of them. The other funniest thing he does of the night, is when you are all handing your cameras to the tour guide, who speaks perfect english, to take pictures of the moon through the telescope. When this kid hands his camera to the guide he says, "I put it on Spanish for you, I hope it helps,"(Imagine it with the asian-accent, it's funnier that way). The guides face in response is seriously priceless. He just looks at him like, do I really sound like i need this camera in Spanish. Funny, funny stuff.
After you get back you and your good friend head into town to pick up some groceries for dinner. You get back to the hostal, and realize that all your tourmates have the keys to the room. So you find the little old lady and tell her you need a key for room 3. She says no, and takes you to another room (at this point your thinking she just doesn't have one, and doesn't want you to wait in the cold). But then, when you get to the room, she says here is a double room for you and your friend. You realize that she thinks you need a room, so you try and explain to her again that you just need a key for room 3. She tells you room 3 is occupied and you can't go in there. You tell her that the room is being occupied by you. But she just won't have it and persists on giving you a new room. Everytime you try and re-explain she just shakes her head, and gives you the look like 'you don't know what your saying, you think you do, but you don't because it's in Spanish'. This goes back and forth for a good 5 minutes, until she finally understands and gets you a key. You then proceed to make a swell spaghetti dish and head to bed.
This is really a beautiful and very colorful garden - it didn't come out very well.
This is a pretty bad picture, but you can kind-of see one of the hammocks there in the middle of the pic. It looked way better in real life.
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