La Serena, Chile

We very rarely do the 'ships' tours, as they are expensive and we all hate being herded on and off coaches, so we do our own thing, and today was no exception.

La Serena is our first port of call, so off the ship we got and Roy negotiated a good rate with a local taxi driver who took us to the the town centre, once he parked his taxi he then proceeded to walk with us showing us local sights, the taxi driver spoke some English but the conversation took place mostly in Spanish.

He took us to a local market, Rose bought a very colourful 'throw' and I bought a cape made from Llama wool, which will be very useful next winter.

I gave this guy some money and asked his permission to take a photo.

If we had taken the ships tour, doing the same thing it would have cost us $50 each, we paid a fraction of that price for a better tour.