Amelie's First Birthday!

Hard to believe that little Amelie is now a one year-old. I still remember seeing her for the first time, wrapped snuggly in her mother's sling as we stood in line at the airport in Atlanta waiting to board the plane headed for Chile. That was nine months ago. We didn't know each other then; we didn't know we were headed for the same place, on the Fulbright Teacher Exchange Program. I remember looking nostalgically at that mother and baby, thinking of myself thirteen years ago. Who would have guessed that soon our families would become very good friends. In fact, now, my daughters feel like Amelie's big sisters and just can't see enough of her. Amelie is an adorable and incredibly fun baby to be around, it's true. In fact, I have on several occasions offered a two-for-one trade to John and Melinda: one beautiful baby girl in exchange for two sometimes sweet, sometimes sassy pre-teen girls.

So we agreed to have Amelie's first birthday party here at our apartment complex on Saturday night because we have this nice sala de eventos. Next to this big party room is the large grill and picnic table area where we have had parties before. We figured if it were still nice out, we could sit outside and enjoy the crisp, fall air and if it got too cold, we could go inside to the party room. Everything was all set: Melinda, party-planner extraordinaire, already had made and sent the invitations to thirty-some guests, the animal-themed decorations were made, the menu was set and started, cakes baked and decorated, etc. Several of the Fulbright teachers were coming in to Santiago from all around Chile for the big event. A Spanish-teacher friend of Melinda's had even made the trip all the way from Boston. Everything was ready to go, but then the plans began to unravel. . .

Walking home from a visit to our park on Friday evening, the night before the party, the conserje stopped us as we entered the gate. He told us we could not get the key to use the party room the next day without paying $166 to clear an old debt from the previous owner of the apartment. At this time we were informed that we would also need to pay a $100 deposit to use that room. When we reserved the room about six weeks before, we were not told any of this. All we were told was that it would cost $20 for the use of the sala de eventos. So, basically, we were now being told that to use the room we would need to cough up almost $300 on the spot. Up until this point we had enjoyed a very good relationship with most, if not all, of the conserjes from this complex. It seemed rather unjust to extort this money from us in this manner.

The strange story of our apartment is a long one, but here is the shortened version. I rented this apartment from a woman named Carmen, who gave me a six-month contract because she did not know what would be happening with the apartment after that. She knew she would be losing the apartment in a remate (I didn't know what that was at the time, but have since found out is an auction as a result of foreclosure) but she didn't know exactly when that would happen. In December three people appeared at my door: a man, his wife, and their lawyer. The man came with copies of legal papers, claiming that he was now the owner of the apartment and that I should not pay Carmen any more money. He left, having assured me I could continue to live in the apartment tranquilamente, but he did not have a contract for me to look over, nor did we discuss the new rent amount. I had rented a furnished apartment, but the furnishings were Carmen's, not his. When rent came due again in January I contacted Carmen about the situation and she insisted the apartment was still hers at that point. I called the "new owner" back and when I told him this he screamed so loudly into the phone that I had to hang up before serious ear injury resulted. I told them both I would pay when they decided who was the actual owner.

I finally resolved the mystery by going to a government office where they have updated copies of all property titles. It turned out Carmen had still been the owner until mid-January, so with the security deposit we had paid up front, she was actually overpaid by about two weeks. The new owner, shown to be some company, did not actually take possesion of the apartment until February 5th. I have no idea who those three people who came to the apartment really were, but we have heard no word from any new landlord since. Hence, we have had no one asking for rent money now for several months (and also no one to call to have a new water heater put in. The one we have is leaking in the kitchen and a warm shower has become an unpredictable event).

It turned out there were outstanding debts on the utilities and on the gastos comunes (like condo association fees) when we moved in to this apartment, and it was the gastos comunes that they were trying to get us to pay in order to use the party room, even though that was a bill incurred before we ever moved in. After talking to the conserje I went upstairs to call Melinda and tell her the bad news. She didn't mind, in fact she said that was just as well, we really didn't need the big party room because most of the family (John's Chilean exchange partner's family) had just called her to say they weren't going to be able to make it to the party. So we decided to proceed with the party the next day in our rather small apartment.

Our Fulbright friends starting arriving, and Amelie was in a great mood, thoroughly enjoying her big day. I remember the doorbell kept ringing, announcing that some guests had arrived downstairs, and we would buzz them up. The apartment was getting more and more crowded until it was about twenty-five people over capacity. Everyone who had been invited had arrived, even those who had called the night before to say they wouldn't be able to make it! Luckily, Melinda always makes plenty of food for her parties. We quickly ran out of chairs but there was no way we were going to run out of delicious food! There were people eating at a makeshift table out on the balcony, the kids were sprawled out on the floor, there were people in the hallway, and even some eating in the spare bedroom!

After everyone was done with dinner, we moved the party, cake and presents out to the park behind us. It was a beautiful evening in the park, and everyone had a great time celebrating Amelie.

A Vendimia Celebration

We enjoyed a beautiful Saturday in late March, one of the last really warm days of the fall, in the town of Curicó, about a two-hour train ride from Santiago. This was the second time I had taken the train here in Chile, and both times it was a very pleasant experience. The train is clean and punctual, and la Estación Central in Santiago, designed by Gustave Eiffel and opened in 1897, is quite impressive. The beauty of its wrought-iron roof, open-air outdoor feel and palm trees gently swaying give the traveler a great send-off. This is now the only train station in Santiago, where all trains leave the capital for the south. There are no trains that head north any more. There used to be another train station in Santiago, the Mapocho Station, where trains departed for Valparaíso on the coast to the northwest. That station was closed many years ago and is now a cultural center. So on Saturday morning at the Estación Central, we met John, Melinda and Amelie, and our train pulled away at 9:30 am sharp.

We had a fun train ride, the girls happily playing with Amelie. Once in Curicó, it wasn't hard to find all the action. We walked the six blocks or so from the train station to the city's central plaza, a very pretty one with fountain, statues and plenty of palm trees. The plaza was buzzing with music and dancing (cueca, of course), and food vendors grilling meat for anticuchos (shish kabob). And, of course, the wine vendors. All of the nearby vineyards had a booth in the plaza, so you purchase a wine glass and sample lots of great wines. One of the highlights of the vendimia is the grape-mashing contest. Up on the stage are three large barrels, and teams of four compete to see who can make the most grape juice by stomping around in the barrel with their bare feet. While two guys stomp away, another keeps filling the barrel with grapes and the last one opens the spigot in the barrel from time to time to fill a pitcher and then dump that juice into a giant vat.












We had a great day, enjoying all the music and the dancing. In September, for the Fiestas Patrias, we first saw everyone dancing the cueca. After so many months living here, seeing the cueca danced again, with all those pañuelos twirling, was quite inspiring. It made me feel, well, Chilean! We would love to return to the wine festival again next year and stomp on those grapes ourselves and maybe even dance the cueca in the street.

I'm not so sure Sarah would want to return, though. She had an unfortunate incident while we were walking back to the train station that night. We were crossing an intersection when suddenly we heard a scream and turned to see a child laying in the street. It took us a moment to realize it was Sarah; she had just been knocked down by a drunk driver, luckily the driver of a bike, not a car. She got up, very shaken, but just skinned up a bit. John, however, was not as fortunate. Though in his case there was no driver of the vehicle, and he was the one who had had a little too much wine. I think John may very well be back next year for a chance to stomp on those grapes!

Here are some photos from our day at the vendimia:
http://picasaweb.google.com/bdoody61/Vendimia

Fun around Santiago

With school starting in just a few days, our next group of visitors, Carole, Christy, and Ashley, arrived from Chicago on Monday, the day after Sally and the gang left. It's a bit irritating to get to the airport and discover that the plane is two hours late, even though we checked the airline's website before leaving home, and it showed the plane on-time. This happened with Sally's flight, too. At least this time we knew better than to have breakfast at Gatsby's in the airport. Carole's flight finally arrived, and they all had their luggage, so we swooped them up and set off to the apartment. Since I needed to be at school for a meeting on Wednesday and the new school year was starting on Thursday, March 1st, we decided to stay in Santiago and do short excursions from the city. Roxy and Sarah were happy to finally be able to show some guests around their new city. The kids took a dip in the pool, had a tea party out on our balcony, and walked around our neighborhood. We took them to visit the girls' music school and the school where they would soon be going, to el Cerro Santa Lucía and then to the Mercado Central for a delicious seafood lunch. We toured the Palacio Municipal de Providencia, which was having an interesting display of armour, visited Pablo Neruda's house, La Chascona, and did some shopping in the Bellavista neighborhood.

The first day of school I only had one class to teach, a group of juniors. I was happy to see that my schedule had been reduced from the 38 hours I was teaching last semester to the 30 hours as stipulated by our contract. Then I was told that one of the 7th-grade classes had been cancelled due to the low number of students in that grade. So I got to school on Friday at the usual time, 7:30 a.m., even though I no longer had that first class. I figured I'd do some planning during those first two periods. Then one of the other teachers casually remarked to me that they had created another 8th-grade class, and it would be at the time of the previously-scheduled 7th-grade class. Of course I would be teaching this new course, and I wondered why no one had bothered to tell me about it. By now I'm used to this lack of information and communication, and I try not to let it bother me. Mostly, I was glad they had created another 8th-grade class, because now the classes were smaller and much more manageable. Instead of 45 students in a class, the classes are closer to 30.

My schedule is so much better than last semester! I actually have some free time during the day instead of teaching classes straight through from 7:45 until 2pm. Also, I'm done on Friday at 12:35, so after my last class on Friday, we jumped in the van and headed for the coast: to Valparaíso and Viña del Mar. In Valparaíso we stayed at the very comfortable Hotel Ultramar and ate dinner that first night at J Cruz, a quirky Valpo restaurant serving chorillana (a big mountain of pork, onion, fried egg and french fries) that everyone at the table eats from a common plate.

In the morning after a very good breakfast in the hotel we drove the narrow, winding roads of Cerro Bellavista until we found Pablo Neruda's house, La Sebastiana. The views of the city from the house are truly inspiring, and his collection of antique furniture and knick-knacks collected from around the world is intriguing. From there we walked around the dock before settling in at Bote Salvavidas for lunch. The food was good, (especially the desert!) and we were able to watch all the activity going on in the port. Before leaving for home, we made another stop - to the beach at Viña del Mar, where we relaxed on the sand, and Sarah and Ashley played in the water despite the cool temperature.

We had a really nice visit with our friends, and taking them to the airport on Sunday night was sad. Summer was truly over; I would be back in school again on Monday morning, and the girls were starting school on Wednesday.

Click here for more pictures from our excursions in and around Santiago: http://picasaweb.google.com/bdoody61/SantiagoExcursions

More Fun with Family

After the morning's boat ride and penguin and whale-watching we had a great lunch - more seafood, of course. This time it was loco, a delicious shellfish that probably doesn't have an English translation, seeing as it's only found in Chile and southern Peru. Then we were ready for the beach. Fortunately, we left the van behind and took the vehicle with four-wheel drive, or we'd still be there trying to dig ourselves out of the sand. It was an amazingly beautiful beach, and for a long time we had it all to ourselves.



The next day we went four wheeling again, this time to the sand dunes. The kids had a great time running up the dunes and then rolling down. Even Nana was having a blast; she really liked going off road, though she didn't feel much like rolling down any dunes with the kids. We were hoping to see some guanaco, but there were none to be found. We did, however, spot a tarantula in the road. Also, we saw some goats drinking from a fresh-water spring that was right at the shore of the ocean, a rather unusual geological phenomenon, I would think. We stopped at the home of a family that Rodrigo knew to buy some goat's cheese. For generations this family has lived in this isolated spot out in the desert, and taking a look around, it was evident their lifestyle hasn't changed much for the last hundred years.

After our ride out into the desert it was time to head back to La Serena where we would again spend the night before driving back to Santiago tomorrow morning. Before we left, though, one last magical moment in the north: in the clear, late-night sky at Mamalluca Observatory we saw the planet Saturn. What an awesome sight!
On the way home that next day we took a little detour to Fray Jorge National Park. We took a short hike through Fray Jorge, its dense forest vegetation in stark contrast with the semi-desertic climate surrounding the park. Sally and Jan particularly liked the mist blowing in off the ocean and the result it had on their neatly-coiffed heads.

Once in Santiago, we still had a few more days to enjoy, but our time together was going much too quickly. I had a meeting at the Fulbright office on Friday, so Bill and the girls took everyone sightseeing to Cerro San Cristóbal. In the evening Roxy and Sarah had their first-ever big concert: I took them to see La Oreja de Van Gogh, a band from Spain. We had been learning songs off their new CD, Guapa, in the car on this last trip. Everyone else had been getting pretty tired of hearing it again and again, but it was fun for us to be able to sing along at the show.

Saturday our guests went shopping to el Pueblito de los Dominicos and on Sunday we went wine-tasting at a vineyard just outside of Santiago, Concha y Toro. This is where the Casillero del Diablo wine is made. I first heard about this wine when, one day in my first month of teaching here, I walked into the teacher's lounge and there was a broken bottle of wine on the floor. No one seemed to know whose it was or where it had come from, but someone said something about "Casillero del Diablo". I still wasn't understanding a lot of what people were saying in those early days (Chileans have a rather unique Spanish), but I was fairly certain that the tiny little locker allotted each teacher was called a casillero. So I thought that they were explaining that there was a devil in someone's locker who had knocked the bottle out. Actually they were lamenting that someone had lost an expensive bottle of that particular well-known label of wine.

On Saturday night the wine was flowing and the pisco sours, too, as we celebrated a wonderful week together. We invited our Chilean friends and our North American Fulbright friends to join us at our apartment for an asado (a barbecue). The only ones missing were Catherine and Dan, with his guitar. All of us Fulbright teachers realized our incredible summer was coming to an end, everyone would be leaving for their Chilean towns for another semester of teaching, and no one was sure when we would all be together again. We have become quite a close family here together this year in Chile.

Click here to see some silly videos: Sally and Jessie doing the penguin dance, the kids (and Sally) playing on the sand dune, and Lucas acting crazy at Fray Jorge National Park.
http://picasaweb.google.com/bdoody61/KidsAndSallySillyVideos

Here are more photos: http://picasaweb.google.com/bdoody61/TripWithLucasAndJessie

A Wild Adventure North

It was great to have Nana, Sally and the kids, and Jan come and visit us for a week. We sure had a lot of good laughs and some very memorable adventures.

All but Jan arrived on Saturday morning and the first thing the kids did was head right for the pool. Temperatures in Chicago were still hovering around zero; notice the big smiles on those formerly-frozen faces. Then we enjoyed a lunch of typical Chilean food: empanadas and pastel de choclo, washed down with some delicious all-natural fruit juices: frutilla, melón, piña, and chirimoya. That night our friend Paola (a.k.a. the bird lady) came to brief us on the exciting trip we would soon be taking to the third region in the north of the country, to the coastal desert. Here's her website which explains this and other trips she leads around Chile: www.meteoritos.cl/naturalista. She showed us a powerpoint about the small fishing village of Caleta de Chañaral where we would be staying and photos of some of the wildlife we could expect to see. I have always wanted to see whales and when I heard that a large group of them had recently been hanging out near the village I became very hopeful. And I can still remember seeing Lucas' face light up when he saw the photo of the penguins that breed on the nearby island we would be visiting. Lucas, my nephew, has a special interest in penguins, and when I learned they would be coming to visit us in Chile I specifically worked out this trip with him in mind. After Paola's presentation we were all real fired up about our trip the next day. Now we just had to hope that Jan would indeed arrive in time. As an employee of United, she travels stand-by and was supposed to have arrived on Friday but had still not made it.

Well, happily Jan did arrive on time and we set off late Sunday morning in the big, white van, luggage piled high and the radio blasting our traveling theme song: "We're Not the Jet Set", sung by John Prine and Iris DeMent. It was so nice having my mom, sister, niece and nephew, and friend/sister Jan with me in Chile after all these months living away from home; we were all so excited to be together, our exhuberance showed in our singing and laughing.

We made a stop in Los Vilos for a picnic lunch looking out at the sea. I remembered having read about Los Vilos as the small beach town in northern Chile where, incredibly, three different sets of deciduplets had been born to three different families. Imagine our surprise when, sitting there on the coast enjoying our lunch, whom should we see but the infamous youngsters walking by. The three ladies with the thirty children, all boys and many dressed alike, were truly quite a sight. Jan and Sally just stared, mouths agape. Now, don't tell me you're as gullible as Jan and my sister!!

It was on to La Serena to a beautiful hacienda-style hotel where we would stay the night before setting off for the fishing village. La Serena is a nice seaside city that I would someday like to return to and spend more time there. But I will insist on ordering my own dinner, thank you. No intermediaries, like the ever-helpful woman from the hotel, who turned the simple task of ordering a meal into a comedy befitting the Three Stooges. Even with her "help" (or perhaps as a result of it), Sarah's vegetarian spinach ravioli arrived with very detectable portions of meat inside. The waiter persisted in denying there was any carne in her ravioli until we dissected it in front of him, showing him the not-so-small morsels of meat. Ordering a vegetarian meal in Chile is, like so many other things, un poco complicado.

The landscape was slowly changing. We were headed to the third region, the transitional zone known as el norte chico (the little north). Several hours further north was el norte grande (the great north), where the landscape would change further becoming the Atacama Desert, the driest place on our planet, where there is no plant life to speak of. Here, in the third region, we saw the copiapóa cactus, an endangered species, in bloom. I would love to see this desert sometime in full flower, a sight of breathtaking beauty I am told happens every four or five years. On a pit stop along the road, one of us got very intimate with a cactus when, losing her balance while in a rather precarious position, she fell right into the unforgiving plant. It sure looked funny, but having to pick several needles out of her arms, we quickly stifled our laughter. Also, it was here that we got stuck in the sand with the van. I wasn't sure we were going to get over the hill and to the village. Paola and Rodrigo were in one four-wheel drive jeep, and another couple who were to be our guides and cooks on the trip, Andrea and Pablo, were in another jeep and making it through the sand with little difficulty. Our big van, however, got to some very loose, sandy terrain where it just spun its wheels. Just another of those priceless moments when our guests could be heard muttering, "This is more than I bargained for!"

Finally, we did arrive to our cabin near the sea and, after enjoying a nice meal at the restaurant a few steps from our cabin, wasted no time in going out to the water to explore. Luckily we had our invaluable guide Paola who, besides being an ornithologist, is also a biology teacher, and was able to help point out all sorts of interesting creatures. Some were so tiny we would have missed them completely, like the baby crab the size of the tip of your finger. She also showed us shark eggs, starfish, sea anemone, and beautiful birds, such as the oyster catcher, kelp gull and snowy egret, as we waded out through the chilly water and dense seaweed to a little island. While we went exploring, Andrea and Pablo were setting up their camp, and Rodrigo, after slipping into his wet suit, went, spear in hand, and submerged himself in the water. A couple of hours later, as we were returning from our explorations, Rodrigo was just coming out of the water with about six good-sized fish tied to a line.

That night we enjoyed a delicious dinner of ceviche, potatoes, salad and the fresh catch of the day. Looking up at the night sky we couldn't believe how clear it was and how many stars could be seen. Rodrigo pointed out the Southern Cross to us. Like our Big Dipper in the north, this is the constellation used to get your bearings in the southern hemisphere. He showed us how to follow the stars in the cross which point to the south. Due to the clear skies in this part of the country and the sparse population, several internationally renowned observatories are located not far from here. Before returning home from this trip up north, we made a late-night visit to one, Mamalluca, and saw an incredible view of Saturn through the telescope there.

The next morning we awoke, not knowing what a fantastic boat ride was in store for us that day. The nine of us and Paola boarded the little fishing boat with our captain and his first mate. We were afraid Nana's back wasn't going to hold up on the three-hour ride out to sea, so we put one of our beach chairs between two rows of benches, and there she sat like Cleopatra traveling down the Nile.

Not an hour into our trip, we began to see whales, not far off in the distance but swimming all around us! The captain cut the motor and we would sit in the middle of the sea in total silence, waiting until suddenly a huge whale would surface nearby, a giant spray of water shooting out of his blow-hole. One swam right under us, through the clear water I could see him, two or three times the size of our boat. Another surfaced and swam a bit right alongside us, not five feet away. And yet another swam up and did a flip out of the water over onto his belly, right in front of us. There were probably a dozen whales in the vicinity, putting on a spectacular show for us that I'm sure none of us will ever forget; it was simply magical.

From there we went on to Isla Chañaral and circled it, as sea lions and dolphins playfully checked us out. The island is a National Wildlife Reserve, and people are not allowed to disembark. As a result, of course, the island is teeming with wildlife, undisturbed by humans. On the island we saw the shy Humboldt Penguins (Lucas' favorite!), who would start to waddle away as soon as our boat approached, and also a massive colony of sea lions. I can still remember first hearing the roaring sound of those sea lions and then, as we rounded the bend, the sight of the entire side of the island covered with them. They were fascinating to watch: some sliding down into the water while others struggled to make their way up, pairs of the thick-necked males fighting, an area that appeared to be the day care: several female sea lions looking on at a whole pile of young pups (literally, a pile, with some stacked on top of others). Everyone agreed, this was a once-in-a-lifetime trip.

Click here to see videos of the whales and sea lions we saw:
http://picasaweb.google.com/bdoody61/SeaCreatureVideos

Click here to view more photos from this trip: http://picasaweb.google.com/bdoody61/TripNorthWithFamily

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

Two weeks in the south of Chile

No sooner had English Summertown ended than we were making the first
(of many!) trips to the Santiago airport to pick up friends and family coming from the U.S. to visit. Our first visitors were Judy and Joe, both of whom had been to South America several times before but had never been to the beautiful Lakes District in the south. We decided to see as much of the south of Chile as we could in the two weeks they were with us.

Our first stop after leaving Santiago was Chillán, where we stayed at our friends Catherine and Dan's house along with John, Melinda and Amelie who were with us for the first few days of our trip. We visited the beautiful market in Chillán, the modernist cathedral with its 36 meter-high cross commemorating the thousands of people who died in the devastating 1939 earthquake, and the Mexican School, donated by the Mexican government after the earthquake, with its superb mural by David Alfaro Siqueiros. Bill, Melinda and John made us a delicious meal one night with the fresh vegetables we had bought at the market and delicious meat, including the longaniza (sausage) for which Chillán is famous.
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Our next destination was el Parque Nacional Conguillío, and for a short while we were convinced we were hopelessly lost. The landscape near the entrance to the park was eerie and desolate, resembling the lunar surface, with no one in sight. Soon, however, in the midst of the lava fields we saw the sign indicating our cabins at La Baita were just ahead. What an incredible find! The cabins were beautiful and the surrounding landscape, with Volcán Llaima (over 10,000 feet high) towering just above us, impressive. What a perfect place to relax and enjoy the beauty and peace of this National Park which is off the beaten tourist path. We did some hiking and explored the volcanic rock fields left from an eruption of this still very active volcano. We saw landscape here that looked prehistoric and had, in fact, been used to film the PBS documentary, Walking With Dinosaurs. There are three very beautiful lakes in the park, formed just a few decades ago when a lava flow dammed the Río Truful-Truful. Laguna Arco Iris is an incredible blue-green color and Laguna Captrén has trees poking up from the middle of the lake. One of our favorite hikes was up into the forests with thousand year-old araucaria trees, also known as monkey-puzzle trees, and other Chilean species such as raulí, coigue, oak and cypress.

We would have loved to stay here longer and explore more of the natural beauty around us. Also, Loreto, the chef at La Baita, was feeding us the most incredible meals in the very cozy lodge there. It was hard to leave, but we were on a mission to see as much of the south of Chile as we could, so it was on to Pucón and Villarrica. Unfortunately, we found out the hard way what ripio is. You take the highway, and we'll take the ripio, and you'll get to Pucón about two hours before us. Ripio are very bad, gravel roads.

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Pucón is a very touristy area, with nice resorts, shopping and restaurants. It is a beautiful town on the lake, with the smoldering Volcán Villarrica for a backdrop and huge pink, purple and blue hydrangeas everywhere. Our first day there we were a bit disappointed to hear we had to be up and out of the house where we were staying, a couple of miles out of town, by 7:30 a.m. because there was a half Iron Man triathlon taking place in Pucón, and they would be closing off the street leading into town. We were in slow motion mode on this trip, largely due to me slowly recuperating from the intense school year that had just ended. But it was good to get an early start for a change. What a surprise to see that we knew someone who was participating in the triathlon. Keith, a Fulbright professor here in Santiago with his family this year, was standing by the bikes putting on his wet suit when Bill spotted him in the crowd. We had a lot of fun in Pucón that day, with the swimmers, bikers and runners energizing the whole town. From time to time, taking a break from our explorations of the town, we would stand by the curb and watch for Keith to run by and then cheer him on wildly. Roxy and Sarah became very inspired watching the athletes and decided to start training right away for a triathlon.
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Running alongside the car to our next destination, near Lake Llanquihue, the girls got a good workout and a good start with their training. With all the shopping Judy and Joe did, the van was getting terribly crowded, and we desperately needed to free up some space inside. Here we had the only rain on our trip. Clearly, it rains a good amount in the beautiful, lush Lakes District in the south, and I was told that, traveling there in January, we were probably going to get a lot of rain. Fortunately it only rained one day, while we were staying at the cabin in Ensenada, right on the lake. This place had a heated indoor swimming pool, very hot and steamy, and we had a relaxing swim there one night. Running out of clean clothes, we had them do some laundry for us. We were sure surprised to get the $60 laundry bill! We sure won't make that mistake again. While staying in Ensenada, we made a trip to nearby Puerto Varas, with its lovely rose-lined streets, Frutillar, which has a wonderful German museum and a beautiful theater on the lake, and Vicente Pérez Rosales National Park. Click below to see the impressive sight of Osorno Volcano and the Petrohué Falls:
http://picasaweb.google.com/bdoody61/VolcanOsorno/photo#5041188189503074034

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From there it was on through Puerto Montt and then to the ferry which brought us to Chiloé Island, the second-largest island in South America, after Tierra del Fuego. Here in Chonchi the Lonely Planet travel guide let us down a couple of times. In one of their recommended hostels we walked in and walked right out. For some reason, Joe had a problem with the shower being in a different building than his room! Luckily, just down the road a bit, we found a hostel in a big, beautiful, old house run by a delightful and very hospitable woman. When we first arrived, she invited us into her living room and poured us each a glass of licor de oro (gold liquor), an interesting local concoction of milk, alcohol, sugar, cloves, lemons, saffron, almonds, vanilla and cinnamon. We rented the cabin in back of the house, which was perfect for the six of us. We would have done well to have cooked dinner that night in our well-equipped kitchen. Instead, we went to one of the only restaurants in town, another recommendation of the Lonely Planet, where everyone but Bill and I had a terrible dinner. Our fish sandwiches were quite good, and I gave the others some helpful advice: "When in a fishing village, order fish!" And to Judy: "When in Chile, order pisco sour, not margaritas or sangría!" But then, who would think you could mess up either one of those?

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Some highlights of our visit to Chiloé Island:
Beautiful sunsets like this one. The ferry ride to the island with several hundred pelicans following us. Going to the end of the Pan American Highway in Quellón. Seeing the palafitos (houses up on stilts) in Castro. Visiting Parque Nacional Chiloé on the beach. Seeing the beautiful, unique churches in several of the small villages on the island, though the seemingly endless search for these villages on badly-marked dirt roads was certainly not a highlight of Bill's (the driver of the van). Staying at the Hostal Lluhay in Ancud. Seeing Comet McNaught big and bright in the clear, night sky. And visiting Museo Chilote and Fuerte San Antonio. It was at this fortress in Ancud where, during the wars of independence, the last Spanish flag was flown in Chile in 1810.
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I had hoped to make it further south in Chile, but it is such a long country, I soon realized that one year is not enough time to see and do all I'd like. Turning around and heading northward, we planned to meet up again with the Heiners in Valdivia, a charming town on the coast 300 km from Ancud, on Saturday night, just in time for the annual German beer festival held there. We found the cabins that Melinda had reserved easily enough, unpacked, and set out to join them at the fest. We thought parking might be a problem so we got in a couple of taxis and asked them to take us to the festival. Well, taxi drivers in Santiago have a reputation for not knowing where they're going and also not having change. Apparently it's not just Santiago drivers, because these drivers brought us to the Kuntsmann brewery, not to the beer fest. The good news is that Kuntsmann beer is excellent, the best in Chile. The bad news is that the restaurant at the brewery is horrible and the place was dead. Of course! Any self-respecting beer drinker was at the beer fest that night. Notice the different atmosphere at the fest and at the restaurant:

The next day we had a great time in Valdivia. We went to the feria fluvial (the riverside market), took a boat ride, visited the Museo Histórico y Arqueológico, and ate lunch at a nice place called Approach before leaving the city and continuing on toward Santiago. The ride back that last day was relatively uneventful. Most noteworthy was a surprisingly delicious lunch at a hard-to-find restaurant in Rancagua, Doña Emilia's, where a tuna performed for us. A tuna is a musical group of university students, a tradition that began many centuries ago in Spain.

Before Judy and Joe had to leave for home, we got in one last day trip, to the coastal towns of Valparaíso and Viña del Mar. It was great to just relax on the beach and watch the boobies. Before you get the wrong idea, that is what we call them in English, but in Spanish they are called piqueros. They are birds that swim over the ocean and then suddenly dive from way up high, plunging into the water and swimming after their prey.

Now we have about a week to rest up and get some things done in Santiago before we have the next three back-to-back groups of visitors coming, which will take us right up to school starting again. This is going to be a very short summer!

Click here to see photos from this trip: http://picasaweb.google.com/bdoody61/TripSouth