Gone to the beach

Since I'm at the so-called "thinking man's beach resort" I figured I might as well try out the beach, which is where I spent yesterday afternoon. I thought I would just go down there and sit down and read, but there weren't convenient places for doing that so I decided to walk instead. I knew it was a long beach so I thought I'd see how far I could go before getting tired (or tired of it) or running out of beach.

The sand is white (or maybe grey) and crunchy, thanks to the billions and billions of shells (oyster, I think) that litter it up to the water line. Presumably the live inhabitants of similar shells were providing occasional sustenance for the scattering of gulls and other seabirds that were hanging around. The beach was more or less deserted in the early part of the afternoon, even by foreigners. There were a few guys kicking around a soccer ball and the odd person actually sunning themself. The temperature might have had something to do with it: it was a sunny day but I was not too hot wearing a fleecy jacket over my t-shirt. The sun was deceptive though: I never had it in my face but I hadn't counted on it reflecting back from the sand, so I had a cheery sunburn by the end of the afternoon.

Anyway I walked a couple of hours south, which was impressive, not that I walked that long but that the beach didn't run out. In fact, I ended up in the neighbouring city, Coquimba, so I probably walked about 8km. The beach went on for a while, but by then it was time to eat and make peace, so I stopped and found a restaurant. After that I walked back to La Serena...a few more people were out and about by then.