Isla Damas Excursion, Part I

Friday, in La Serena, Sarah and I took the most amazing tour. It was better, perhaps, than the geyser tour I did in San Pedro. Please keep in mind, Sarah and I did the tour on less than two hours of sleep, so if we look destroyed in the pictures, we had a good reason. Having noticed me passing out in the back of the van, at one of our stops our guide said, "Miss Tiffany, tienes sueño?" I responded that yes, I was tired, but I had been listening to everything he said along the way (I had!).

Our tour took us through (more) desert landscape, and I delighted in the colors and the variety of cacti. Along the way, our guide stopped several times to explain points of interest.

I love the desert.


Pretty flowers in bloom.
There is nothing more lovely than a green desert. The desert is watered by the heavy fog that blankets the land around La Serena every morning.

These are guanacos, also of the camelid family, in-between the size of llama and vicuña. I dedicate this picture to my mother, because when I looked in my digital camera later in the day I realized I had taken about 20 pictures of the damn things, when they had not really moved at all.
After several hours on the road, we reached the ocean. We boarded a tour boat and zipped out to an island heavily populated by sea lion and bird colonies. I love boating, and I thoroughly enjoyed the salt air and sprays of water that hit my face as the boat powered over the waves. It was really fun seeing the sea lions. They are so goofy. The noise they make alone is captivating, but when you factor in their flopping around, yawning, and inquisitiveness, you cannot help but grin stupidly while they are in your sight. I watched a baby sea lion try to pull itself up a steep rocky incline after her mama. We also glimpsed a couple penguins, although the best time to view them is in the summer. They were cute, too, but kind of boring since they hardly moved at all.

The highlight of the trip was when we were boating from the first island to the second. All of a sudden, five different dolphins started cresting around our boat. It was the most magical moment of my two weeks in the north. They were so close to our boat at times, and you could see their white underbellies as they dove back under and swam under or alongside our boat. They were very curious as to what we were up to, and followed our boat for quite some time. The highlight came when all five of them appeared above water at the same moment. I have never seen dolphins in the wild before, and it was quite emotional for me. As Sarah and I gasped at ever appearance of the dolphins, I must admit that I teared up a bit. You would be looking all around, and then you would hear the whoosh of air as their blowholes opened (a sound that continually gave me goosebumps) and then their backs and fins, and occasionally their faces, appeared above the water. We loved every minute of it!

That hazy island on the horizon is the first one we visited on our boat tour.
The seafairing craft.
Our glimpse at the sea lion colony. This picture doesn't make it clear, but there were babies too.
More pelicans.
There are two penguins in this picture, on the whitish rocks just above the grey, wet rocks in the water. Click on the picture to enlarge it.
More sea lions, the dogs of the sea. They are the cutest, but they smell like garbage.
Omg dolphins!


After our dolphin sightings, we headed over to the second island on our tour to do some more exploring.