I have not updated this blog for a little while as I have started a new one for our travels. Check it out at: www.southamericabyland.wordpress.com. I hope to pick this back up once we are settled again in the south of Chile. Maybe around December. Until then see you at our other blog!
With temperatures between 60 and 115 Fahrenheit, endless amounts of peaches, nectarines, excellent Mexican food and health food grocery stores galore, California has to be one of the coolest states the northern part of America has to offer. Arriving in the southern part of the state on the Forth of July to fireworks and constant Michael Jackson music and news, I was reminded that returning to the United States is a challenge, but always an entertaining one. I began the adjustment with five days in Los Angeles before heading north 4 hours to Morro Bay for Grandpa’s 95th birthday. I stayed with family (see picture of totally cute nephew above) and enjoyed the incredible vacation.
From Morro Bay I continued traveling north and met up with friends. We hung out in Santa Cruz and once again I had awesome weather and incredible company.
We played frisbee (see pictures above), checked out the boardwalk including rides (below), ate lots of Mexican food (the national food of California I’m sure) and chilled on the beach.
I also visited a farmers market in Santa Cruz. What incredible produce that state has.
Fresh blueberries were in abundance….for $10 a cup.
After reaching the most northern part of the world I will visit in the next 2 years, I ended my trip with an exceptionally long drive back to LA and another few moments with my parents. I then set out for a journey south through Atlanta and on to Santiago…where I am currently chilling on the 7th floor of Mar del Plata, Providencia with a glass of Chilean (of course) Cabernet Sauvignon. From here it’s on to finding our traveling vehicle, getting our things together and setting out for six months of traveling.
Thanks to all who made the past 17 days possible. To good friends and family who made the time to hang with me, drive me places, laugh like fools together and catch up on lost time. And to the beautiful state of California for it’s incredibly dry, hot and clear weather (a complete contrast to where I am now) and its sunsets after 8 p.m., I couldn’t have asked for more.
Lastly to the California Kittens who surely have a home on earth or in kitty afterlife today. You made me laugh harder than I had in years and gave me yet another tragic animal story for the year.
A special thanks to Mom and Dad. They make it all possible.
We are traveling in the south of Chile and visited the island of Chiloe. Incredible place. We slept in a palafito, which is a house hanging over the water. The place was called Hostel Palafitos and it was wonderful. Great service, great breakfast, quiet and just so cool sleeping over the water. Here is the view from our place.
We also visited the coast and hiked to the water. The water was completely red as they are suffering from red tide. But it was still beautiful. On our way there we came across the most amazing mushrooms I’ve ever seen. They are called amanita muscaria and although they are poisonous you’d have to eat about 13 caps to die. They are also eaten for nutrition as you can cook them and then they are eatable. They are also hallucinogenic when eaten raw. We passed that up, but couldn’t help but take 1 million pictures of them.
I also followed Andres around taking pictures of him taking pictures.
Tomorrow we head to Buenos Aires for 2 days 3 nights of eating and shopping, yum yum.
Wandering around our yard yesterday I found the most interesting nest; actually, one of the only nests I have ever found. It is 3 inches by 3 inches and has a beautiful, tiny egg in it. I think the nest is abandoned, but it seems that there were other eggs and this one didn’t make it until the end; which would have been her beginning. The egg is in a blackberry bush. It has such a beautiful, peaceful, tranquil home, exactly what I am looking for.
To give you an idea of the size of the nest, check it out next to a blackberry.
The yard here is incredible. It is full of fruits and vegetables; avocados, lemons, passion fruit, tree tomatoes, blackberries, corn, cilantro, and figs. Below you can see a picture of a fig from our tree.
I am hoping that when we move to Chile we will have even more fruits and vegetables in our yard.
Stay tuned for the launch of our travel site.
We drove as far up volcano Osorno as we could in our small, economic car. In the winter a small ski area runs up there, but in the summer us tourists are the visitors who use the ski lifts to see the amazing view they provide. We could see as far as the pacific ocean, to the island of Chiloe, where we had hoped to visit. We could see at least four volcanoes and an amazing view of the the lake. It’s the first time I’ve touched snow, in January, in the middle of summer.
We met this cool dog walking down the beach by the lake in Pucon. I guess we happen to be a lot nicer than the five thousand other people on the beach because this cool dog decided she liked us best and followed us around loyally for the next hour or so. I named her Pepino, meaning cucumber for no reason whatsoever, I just thought it suited her. She was full of life and had this crazy hobby of jumping wildly at the incredibly annoying bugs that buzzed around us constantly (you would have died Amy).
As she often scared them off it was a nice gesture, but meant for a lot of Pepino launching herself into our heads. We had a great time with her and were both really sad when we had to hide from her so that she’d stop following us.
We wish her the best…
While in Chile we were able to enjoy several meals with our family in Santiago. It was great to visit with them and see them all healthy and well. We look forward to seeing them again in the near future.
We are back in Los Angeles and enjoying our weekend of cooking and relaxing. I thought I’d go back to where I left off on our trip and post a few more pictures. After leaving Pucon we drove 3 hours south to the town of Frutillar.
The town has really great German architecture that comes from the many Germans who settled there around 1910. The town is little more than a street with great shops and restaurants, but we enjoyed a good lunch with a wonderful view of volcano Olsorno and walked around a little before heading out and around the lake further.
We drove out of Frutiller on a dirt road around the lake. After a couple hours and a few small towns we reached Ensenada. We stopped in at a couple places then checked out a few Cabanas before settling for a beautiful place right on the lake. Our cabin was fully furnished and had an incredible view of lake Llanquihue from the dining area.
We went to the small food market down the street and bought everything we needed to make an incredible meal of potatoes with meat and herbs and a creative avocado, tomato salad. We spent our day reading, drawing and took a few walks by the water.
We left the next morning (without our computer charger) and headed back north to return our rental car and catch a late flight back to Santiago.
Well, I was hoping to do better with this blog, but as the charger for our computer sits some 15 hours by bus from where we are now and the computer with all our pictures lays dead you will have to wait. We are at a hotel airport for another night in Santiago. The airline overbooked our flight and have therefore put us up here until tomorrow night. As soon as I we have purchased another charger I promise to post some more of our pictures. It has been a wonderful trip!
We arrived in Temuco, 13 hours south of Santiago early yesterday morning. So early that the guard at the airport where we were picking up our rental car offered to open the airport so that we could sit somewhere warm. We were the only ones in the entire airport. I wondered what homeland security would think of that. After a 3 hour wait at the airport the Avis rent a car worker decided it was time to show up to work and we were able to get our car. From there we drove about an hour to Pucon. What an amazing drive and an incredible city. It’s very relaxed and feels more like a vacation town in the mountains of California than any South American city I have ever visited. After a day of walking around, laying by the lake and eating good food we took a drive out to some hot springs about an hour away. On our way we picked up a couple of hitchhikers as seen in the photo above. It turned out we were passing right by their destination and we offered to even take then the extra mile directly to their doorstep. They were very grateful and we asked to take a picture with them. We soaked in the hot springs for a couple hours before we headed back to the town for a dinner of pizza and beer. Today we went rafting in level 3 rapids. It was a wonderful experience with lots of laughter. Hopefully I’ll be able to post a picture of that soon. Tomorrow we are going to wake early and take a drive a few hours more to the south to see more of the countryside. I have to say, this is one of the most beautiful places I have ever been.
We are getting ready for our Christmas trip to Chile. We will be flying out of Los Angeles on December 24th and arriving in Santiago on December 25th at 6am. From there we will be spending a few days with Grandma Pacheco and then heading to Valparaiso for New Years. After that we will take a bus 13 hours south to relax and take in some outdoors in the Lake District in the town of Pucon. We’re hoping to do some rafting, biking, hiking and soak in hot springs. We will try to update this site with some pictures and stories of our adventures.
Happy Holidays!
