today i swung by the rock museum in copiapo, then continued south to la serena. la serena is a nice little city of a couple hundred thousand people. not too much to do here: see some churches (they have a couple dozen), check out the mall (still waiting for the bruno movie), see the beach (the rocky coastline of chile is reminiscent of northern california), eat some food, etc. a few notes on chile:

1) speed bumps are strangely absent from chile. so far, i’ve encountered two in the whole country…what a relief! ..although i did back into a rock today on the beach, and my muffler is broken again (…my bad).

2) chileans drive completely different from the other latin americans i have seen so far. they’ll stop for pedestrians. they don’t honk all the time. they’ll obey road signs…even ridiculous ones….like a stop sign in the middle of the desert where the train crosses the road (most latin americans would only slow down if there was a speed bump and most americans would just yield, but chileans come to a complete stop).

3) i’m now positive that chileans are obsessed with 80s rock. tonight, at dinner, on the tv they played a 30minute montage of music videos from the 80s. on the walk home, i got my own little mash-up as each store played michael jackson, madonna, etc.

4) the term joven (young person) is used a lot. even people who are obviously younger than me call me joven.

5) different countries sell different grades of gasoline. in some places, i used 84 octane. in chile, the minimum is 93 (in peru, super was 95).

6) although sandstorms may sound cool….well, they actually really are pretty cool. but they pitted my windshield pretty badly, so it’s harder to drive into the sun now….looks like i might have to be doing more afternoon driving as i head east to iguazu falls.