Chileans love car camping

I mean they really really love it. They love to drive up in their cars all the way up to the camp site (even if the site is past a creek, for example). Before they leave their homes, they take out the mattresses from their beds, wrap them in plastic packaging, load them in their pickups and sleep on them in their tents. Along with their TVs, boomboxes, cooking grills, dolphin-shaped body massagers, towels and pòssibly a kitchen sink thrown in there as well, for a good even mix.

And the unofficial quiet hours in all campsites are from 3am - 10am. We discovered this the hard way when we saw people start cooking their dinners at around 10pm. No bueno.



We´re in Pisco, Elqui, which is a couple of hours north of La Serena. We spent the past 2 days camping at a nice little place called El Oasis - which, as the name suggests was an oasis in the middle of the desert. We went on a day long boat trip to Isla Choros and Isla Damas and saw several Humboldt penguins, dolphins, sea lions (when they fight, they are really really loud and aggressive), sea otters, pelicans, cormorants, lizards and then some more critters.

Here are some random photos from La Serena and Pisco.