March 29 La Serena - Hacienda Santa Christina (near Ovalle)

After a short overnight stay in La Serena, we continued towards Ovalle to Hacienda Santa Christina. The journey was tiring. Mostly gravel roads through the mountains. At times, we could see real 'cactus forests' that occasionally had beautiful flowers. However, in between, there were also the all too familiar garbage mountains that significantly diminished the excitement of seeing a beautiful landscape. In between, there were villages that were so remote from everything that it was hard to imagine how people (and animals) could even live there.

One thing that is often seen here on the roads are shrines for the many traffic accident victims in Chile. They are often places of prayer for other travelers as well, who add more photos, candles, etc. At first, we photographed every shrine, but then quickly realized that we wouldn't make any progress. I have included a few pictures of these shrines here (in addition to the pictures of the journey).