Notice

The party has been canceled due to illness.
The new date will be posted ASAP. Sorry for the inconvenience!

Hello Followers!

Jaime and I are extending an invitation to all of our blog followers, friends and family to come join us for a celebration of our Chilean Adventure!

We will be sharing some of the traditional foods and Chilean specialties we enjoyed, such as completos, empenadas, Pisco Sours (por les mayores) and mango/orange juice (por les minores), instant coffee and some Chilean candy.

Hope you can come and join us on Saturday, August 17th at 1:00 PM. (Lunch will be served)

Call to RSVP or to get further details and driving instructions if needed.

In Conclusion. . .

We went to the market in Santiago the day before we left to get a few more gifts and things.

These sweet ladies were more than patient as took forever to choose what candy to get. They kept trying to give us change as if we were finished. Not a chance!

The crab claws. I think they are called stone crabs, and they are much different than our Dungeness crabs. I cracked some first because i've never seen raw pieces of crab for sale before. If I'd known I was going to have to cook at the party hostel I might have thought twice about getting them since they don't have lots of cooking equipment really. I had to crack the very thick shells with a soup ladle and I'm pretty sure hardly anyone minded all the noise.

 

Quail eggs!

Amazing huge roots above ground. Almost like built in seating.

The beginning of the funicular at Cerro San Cristobel. It was a lovely ride until it got to nosebleed height, if you have any fear of height issues. "Breathe! It's been here for 100 years..." and other helpful things were said, but ultimately it was getting off the funicular that solved the problem. Look at the next picture if you think I'm over reacting.

See? And remember, this started off at street level!

Back at the bottom they had two of the cutest llamas with hats on, giving rides to children for photo ops. We fell in love!

Oddly enough they had a comfort station right there on the sidewalk. It would have been a shame to pass it by...

We loved the Chilean flag on the balcony. Viva Chile!

They even have the full moon there and Jaime documented it. Honestly, it was spectacular.

A little bear for baby John Junior, only it wouldn't fit on the plane.

A two story, beautiful Merry Go Round--in the shopping mall above the central bus station.

That's it. It was a fantastic trip with so many surprises and learning curves. I love the language and want to learn much more. Strangely, the two most fluent speakers sounded Scandinavian and I was shocked to find out they were Chilean. I don't know if that means the Spanish is that different or what, but it was interesting.

The country is gorgeous, the people are very kind and I'd rather visit during another season when it isn't as cold inside as out and nobody but me seems to notice.

This was such an amazing opportunity and we are so glad to have been able to go. Thank you all for keeping up with the blog and commenting! :)

 

 

 

Santiago News

We made it back to Santiago after another long stay in a bus station and a 10 hour overnight bus ride. The territory between Santiago and Temuco could actually be only five miles on a treadmill road or a large body of water filled with sharks and dragons for all we know.

Our hostel is very similar to La Casa Roja, including squeaky floorboards, tall doors, huge rooms and partying people. It is a little bit warmer, certainly not by much, but the staff is much friendlier. It's a young Australian couple who are just wonderful. And the hostel is huge! The first part is two stories high and decent sized, then you go out the back door, through a small yard, and into another large hostel. It's pretty impressive and not hard to get lost in the maze. We are in the second hostel building and it is so, so cold in here! The doors are always left open and the heat is off (if it exists at all) even though the area is having such a cold snap it's on the news. Brrr!!

 

After getting settled in we made a trip back to the main hostel to get cups for hot chcolate. The door between the hostels was closed, so we tugged and pulled fruitlessly, finally arguing in whispers about who had to ask for help. when suddenly the door opened. Inwards. We both froze for a moment, avoided eye contact and walked inside in dead silence.

The next day we wandered the neighborhood, finding the park Cerra St. Lucia we had briefly seen on our walking tour in Santiago the first week. It is a little jewel in downtown Santiago--a lot of climbing old stone stairs for an incredible view and a lot of history. Chile has been sertled from the early 1500's and much of it is still here, along with other very beautiful archtecture over the centuries.

Here is a view from the top of St. Lucia. Incredible view although it was very windy.

 

 

More shots from Cerra St. Lucia

 

 

Thats all for now. =)

Mom

Pucon

Creative entry in the hostel guidebook. Jaime did herself proud with her own entry but didn't get a picture. Boo! It was great.

Here was a fantastic entry by somebody who must have loved the place.

And this one seems like it must have been an interesting stay.

Paolo and Francesca--best hosts ever. The other lady made the most wonderful granola topped with yogurt and fruit. And they served real coffee!

Beautiful bulletin board, and on the desk next to it is the guestbook. It was a great hostel in lots of ways, but we woke on the third floor with water pouring from our roof both days. Apparently someone on the fourth floor was fuzzy regarding the details of keeping water in the shower.

My ever present delight in ox carts never wanes. These are seriously *big* cows! That one on the street side is almost as tall as the man, and this is usual with what we've seen. Big! They haul logs lots of times.

Jaime's delight in street dogs and dog packs never wanes either. But really, packs of dogs are both ever present and non threatening, which is so unusual except here. They are't skinny and they don't fight with each other either.

On the road up past three volcanoes to the Argentinian border.

 

The Auracunia trees.

 

Volcano Villarrica. Amazing to watch and the town of Pucón is full of adventuresome people climbing to the top.

I said this was so amazing it took my breath away and the picture looks like there are five molecules of steam. Honestly, it looks different in person.

Pretty church in the middle of nowhere.

Definitely this sign is for Chet. Thanks for the prayers!

On our way to Argentina. Volcano on right, Auracania tree in center.

Forest of Auracania trees.

They are very spikey and are painful to touch.

Border station! Nobody was there or they would have stopped us and charged us each $130 (reciprocal fee) but we got to walk across and make it an official crossing on our own. Plus it was a gorgeous drive from Pucón. The last 17 kilometers were gravel on the Chilean side; not sure on the Argentinian side.

 

We were strongly recommended to stop at this Mapuche restaurant on the way. Best Mapuche chef in all of Chile.

We weren't hungry but they cook with the pine nuts from the Auracania trees so we thought we'd just get a little thing with the nuts.

There was a lovely family eating there. The wife spoke several languages, English included, and she recommended the pine nut pudding. Perfect--just what we had in mind. There are no menus but she told the chef what we wanted. It came with sopaipillas and a chili type sauce and a bowl of chopped cilantro, lime, tomatoes and onions. And our pine nut pudding, which looked more like soup. It was a green purée and fairly bland, nothing like what I imagined nuts to be. It was also way more filling than we'd thought. We were so full!

And then she brought out a big salad of celery, onions, lime juice and other things. Wow. Yikes.

Then we waited for the bill.

And *then* she brought out the main dish! It was more like a huge sized serving of a very bland concoction that looked something like hummus baked in the oven. There was no way we could finish that--one serving could have easily fed four people, but we didn't want to be rude and walk out, so I asked for a box. Language skills being what they are, and cultural differences being what they are, here is what that sweet lady did for us:

She put it all in an egg carton for us to take home.

 

Untitled

 

We made it to our hostel in Valdivia! Our hostel is really pleasant and the people who run it are as well.

There is some really cool artwork inside it as well.

Took a trip out to the coast again and got some great pictures.

 

 

 

Random car on top of a roof.

 

Gorgeous bridge and waterfall.

 

 

Overall a pretty nice area, but Villarrica is still my favorite. :)

Not much to post about, but tomorrow we head back up to Villarrica and Pucon. Keep checking back!

Jaime

Happenings

Here is the hostel we stayed at on the 13th. It was pleasant, but not one I would return to given the option. We had a hard time finding it as well as it wasn't on the MAP, but WAS on the listing of hostels. We had decided on another one, they were full, gave us directions to a different hostel, we got lost and found this one. Oh well. Whatever works, I guess.

Opportunity was knocking and it would have been rude not to answer. This tree looked awesome.

We headed out of Villarrica and got straight on the road headed south. We stopped in Osorno to grab some food where this store is.
It sells some really tasty sort of eggrolls filled with ham and cheese.

We continued down to the bottom of where we wanted to go, which was Puerto Montt. Really nothing to see. It's a rather crowded town and kind of dumpy in some areas, but not too bad.

This is in Puerto Montt, somewhere near the outskirts. Very pretty buildings.

Gorgeous, gorgeous area. This is heading out from Puerto Montt and going in a westernly direction towards the coast. Incredible scenery out this way.

Eucalyptus tree grove!

The roads were really wet and the sun came out (yay!!!!) and lit up the whole stretch.

Cows pulling a cart. You don't see that every day, do you.

A post with no dog pictures? You didn't really expect that. ;)

This [pretty] dog came up to me as we got out of the car when we were at the ocean. I turned around and got out a chicken wing and tossed it to him. He hadn't even seen it, he just snapped it out of the air and gulped and that was that.

My back was turned for a moment more and when I turned around..

These dogs just seriously APPEARED. They heard/smelled food and poof, appeared where it was. It was sort of funny.

Mom got to go stick her feet in the water :P

So of course I got pictures.

Pretty path

The area by the ocean.

We drove the hour back to Osorno, the closest city, and found a hostel there. Not after being lost in the city for what had to have been at LEAST forty minutes. You know, if you want people to inhabit your city, try putting up some blasted STREET SIGNS, yeah?
Anyway, we checked in and the room is quite nice, complete with private bathroom and a tv. Not to mention that the bathroom door doesn't fit right and won't actually close. We're packing up so we can sign out by 11.
I'll post more later :)
Jaime