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- Jan 6, 2023
- ☀️ 22 °C
- Altitude: 36 ft
- ChileCoquimboLa Serena29°54’27” S 71°15’43” W
La Serena, second oldest city in Chile
January 6, 2023 in Chile ⋅ ☀️ 22 °C
La Serena is a medium-sized city of 250,000, located 248 miles north of Santiago. It is ChiIe’s second-oldest city, with many things of interest to me.
As it turned out, there was a very nice surprise right across from my Airbnb property: a historic house where the poet Gabriela Mistral lived with her sister, and just behind it, a public library dedicated to her memory. I explored the house with a very knowledgeable guide, and got acquainted with “Gabriela,” as she is known in Chile: the first Latin American author to win the Nobel Prize in literature in 1945, and also an educator, diplomat, and public intellectual. The area of La Serena is full of places where she lived and worked.
I also walked the short kilometer to the “Faro,” lighthouse for my view of the ocean, back to town to book sightseeing, tours and just. walk around. I headed to the small and excellently arranged Archeological Museum, where I learned about the local indigenous people, the Diaguita, who settled in the area (and also in northern Argentina) from around 900 CE. Such wonderful pottery they produced! There are still 88,474 Diaguitas living in Chile today.
The city center was given a “Haussmann treatment” 1948-52 to make it homogenously neocolonial, or Spanish Colonial Revival style. It is pleasant enough, and there seems to be enough money in the city coffers to keep the “historical” buildings freshly painted. This is necessary, because there is a plague of graffiti writing and murals on every available wall in the city. Indeed, this graffiti plague (my opinion) is sanctioned by city governments now all over Chile.
I finally ended my first day in a coffee shop studying Spanish. A wonderful surprise: I found out that José Vasconcelos, the author of our Oaxaca reading circle’s current book, invited Gabriela Mistral to Mexico when he was Minister of Education (1922-24) to establish educational programs. A perfect connection!
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Wonderful to see you traveling again, Doree. Bonne route! Loved seeing the museum displays. . . V X [Victoria]
Traveler How nice to visit a city little-known outside its country---makes you really feel like an explorer. I love the lighthouse as well! James.
Great photos Doree! I enjoy reading about your travels. Take care! [Louisa]
Excelente Doree. Thanks for sharing your adventures. Michael and I are having an amazing time in India. [Barb]