A Visit from Friends

The kids were all smiles at the airport when they met up with their friends, Catherine and Anthony. Their mom, Kathy, was still inside talking to airline officials about all their luggage that didn't arrive with them. Since that had also happened to Joe and Judy, our first visitors, we were now two for two with lost luggage.

After our two-week trip to the south, constantly on the move trying to see so much, we decided that for this trip we would rent a cabin for most of the week and do a little more relaxing. We did and saw plenty, but it was nice to catch up with Kathy, and the kids had a great time playing and swimming in the pool. Clearly, for those coming from Chicago where the weather for several weeks had been sub-zero, it was a treat just to be out of the cold and enjoy the warm, Chilean sunshine.

Leaving Santiago, our first stop was Santa Cruz, right in the heart of Chilean wine country. Lodging here is expensive for what you get, and we ended up staying in a real dive that was anything but cheap. The nearby elegant, colonial-style Hotel Santa Cruz was another option, though a bit too pricey for our budget. It is owned by Carlos Cardoen, a former arms dealer and, because of his investment in the town, somewhat of a local hero. Though we didn't stay at the hotel, we did enjoy a couple of very good meals at the restaurant there. The best part about Santa Cruz was our visit to the Museo Colchagua, also owned by Cardoen, which is the largest private museum in Chile. It has incredible displays of pre-Columbian artifacts, Mapuche jewelry and textiles, artifacts from the time of the conquistadors, an entire room about the huasos (Chilean cowboys), and a wonderful collection of carriages and antique cars.

I wish we would have just visited the museum and blown out of Santa Cruz and headed for the coast to the surfer town of Pichilemu. It would have been nice to watch the sunset over the ocean and I'm sure we could have found a better place to spend the night. From Santa Cruz we headed to Chillán, where we stopped at the market for some groceries and also a little souvenir shopping, and then took the road toward las Termas de Chillán, (the hot springs).

We found some awesome cabins, las Cabañas Los Andes, run by an American ex-pat. The cabins are beautiful, new and very clean, with a well-equipped kitchen. The kids loved the pool with a small waterfall, the giant swing, and trampoline. Anthony made friends with a couple of boys from nearby Concepción who taught him how to plays cards, Chilean style. They use a different deck of cards; I'm going to have to learn how they are played.

This is a lovely part of Chile, with many scenic areas to explore. During our stay we went on two horseback rides, though one was cut a bit short because Sarah's horse got stung by several bees and became rather irate. I was so surprised at one point on the ride to turn around and see Sarah on the horse with our guide, leading her horse behind on a rope. Sarah looked rather upset and was clearly not enjoying the ride. The next day we decided to take a longer horseback ride, but Sarah, Anthony and Bill opted to walk the trail instead of ride the horses.
Roxy, Catherine, Kathy and I set out on our horses with
a guide for an incredible four-hour roundtrip out to an
old, abandoned ski resort called Shangri-La. We passed
through impressive fields of volcanic rock, some of
which had formed huge, black, solid walls.


After a long, hot day of dusty trails on horseback and hiking, Bill and I went off to the hot springs. The others weren't interested in going, so we enjoyed some rare time alone. The water was great, and what an incredible setting up there in the mountains.

The next day we took a rather long, steep hike up the volcano to some therapeutic mud baths. It was lots of fun slopping around in the mud and slathering it all over us. Afterward, our skin felt so soft and revived. After slushing around in the mud hole we dipped into the natural hot springs nearby. They were so impossibly hot, you had to be far from the immediate source of the water to even be able to dip your foot in. After getting used to the temperature for a few minutes, you could finally sit down in a few inches of water. It was well worth the tough journey up (and down) the mountain. The trip down went just as slow as going up because of the slippery gravel
which made the steep descent at times quite difficult. I didn't have on the best hiking shoes and took a couple of good tumbles down. I remember hearing Kathy say, as she inched her way down the steep slope, "This is more than I bargained for!" That seems to be a common sentiment when people come to visit us here in Chile.


We enjoyed it so much at Cabañas los Andes that we actually stayed two extra days. It was so nice to relax that nobody wanted to leave. Finally, we started toward Santiago, but made a detour toward the coast and had lunch on the beach in Iloca. We drove up the coast a bit, and in the small fishing village of Duao we saw a team of oxen pulling boats up out of the water. It was starting to get a bit late to try to make it all the way back to Santiago, so we stayed for the night in Curicó. At least we had the very nice stay at the cabins, because that was sandwiched in between two dives. First in Santa Cruz and now in Curicó. This hotel didn't look too bad from the outside nor when you first walked in. But it rained very hard all night, and when we woke up the next morning we found that it was raining right in the girls' room. We made a stop at a winery for a short indoor tour, too rainy still to see the vineyards and the outdoor operations.

Making it back to Santiago just hours before our guests had to leave for the airport, they had time to pack up and then we went for dinner to our favorite vegetarian restaurant here, El Huerto. Since it was Kathy's birthday, we celebrated with some cake and a "Cumpleaños feliz, te deseamos a ti", the Chilean version of "Happy Birthday". Driving back from the restaurant we had a perfect view of the mountains off in the distance and we couldn't believe what we saw: snow up on top! The rain that we had been getting for the past day was snow up on the mountains right around Santiago, right in the middle of summer!

Click here for more photos of this trip: http://picasaweb.google.com/bdoody61/TermasDeChillan