Before I start into my new post, I just have to apologize for my terrible English that I have been using in my blog. I read my To-Do list post from last week, and I think I mis-spelled at least 5 words or if I didn't mis-spell a word I used it incorrectly. Spanish is definitely messing up my English, so I apologize if my English just sounds ridiculous as times.
Alright, onto to the reason for this post. So not this past weekend, but the weekend before that (yes thats how far behind I am on the blog), "el equipo" went to a place called Cajón de Maipo. It is a part of Chile thats like an hour south of Santiago. So it was close but still far enough away that we go to see more green and more of this beautiful country. It's so crazy to me just how much variety this country has, I mean I know it is long, but until you visit different parts you don't really realize how distinct each region is. Chile has a climate for everyone: if you like the green, cold and outdoorsy things - then go to the south; if you like the hot and dry - then go to the north with the Atacama desert; or if you like the beach and that climate - then come to the central part of Chile where the temperature is basically great all year round.
- Hiking: First as we started off on our walk, we saw the horses. You can pay to ride these up the trail we took, but you can only take them at certain times of the day. So we just hiked the trail instead, but decided to give the horses a little bit of hay beforehand. There was a great photo of me feeding the horses, but I don't know on whose camera it was. Hopefully I can get it to show you all.
This was the view when I was close to the top, I had like minutes left of hiking, but I could hear the group below yelling at me to come down... if only they wanted to climb with me, it would have been so fun to make it all the way to the top. I wanted to see the valley on the other side! Oh well I was close. :)
It is hard to tell in this photo, but in the middle you should be able to see a house, thats just surrounded by trees. Well this house is the house of a priest, he lives out in the middle of nowhere. And not sure why, but I found myself a little jealous of him once I heard the woman that owned the cabins tell us the story. Maybe it also had something to do with the fact that his house seemed awesome!
This is me on my way down back to the group. I hadn't fallen at all, quite amazing for me since I am like the clumsiest person alive. But these pictures show how the story quickly changed. And I went back to my clumsy ways.
So happy that Marcelo was there to capture my graceful fall on film, so nice of him I know. Definitely one of my better moments. I was the first one to get in the pool. Yeah no one was brave enough, I had to pretty much beg and plead to get Marcelo to come in the pool with me. Erin and Constanza just sat in the sun, and Sergio (who doesn't like the sun) sat under a shade tree while I stayed in the pool unable to feel any part of my body. The water to the pool is all river water, so its freezing cold to begin with and since it wasn't a really hot day, the combination wasn't very good.
I don't know if you can see it or not, but there was a rainbow in a circle around the sun, it was a complete circle. I had never seen something like this before so of course I had to take a photo to remember such a rare sight!
This little wooden walkway went around one of the pools, I just thought it looked kinda neat.
- Hot tub (la terma): I want one of these! It was made out of a barrel, and had like a little firepace inside to heat it up, yeah it was incredible! Dad can you put this on your task list for me, and put it at the top too!
We actually spent an entire night in this thing, 7 hours to be exact. I mean yes we did get out to cool off for 20 minutes or so, but then got right back in. We stayed up in 5 in the AM on saturday night, just in the hot tub. Yeah you can imagine how drained we were the next day, and thats when we had to leave! Lack of sleep didn't help either.
- Hike/walk to the store and what we encountered along the way:
This was the bbq area for people who had big groups and wanted to get together and bbq outside, we didn't use it, but I thought I should share it with everyone anyways.
So I had to take a picture of this. Now I can say I found the 2C in Chile! It made me laugh.
This was a river that we came across as we were entering the town to buy a few things for lunch. It was full of people swimming in it, and my family said they were all "flaite's." They looked like normal people to me, just looking for a way to cool off the only way they knew how, just normal small town people.
Just had to share this photo that Marcelo took. Constanza hates it, but it is so good. And it shows just how pretty she is!
This is where our trip ends. One last photo before we enter the house gate in Viña and have to go beack to school and the real world. But like always it was another great adventure, and am always ready for the next!
After this trip I was so happy to see green and pretty mountains. The snow capped ones in this photo are of the Andes, the border between Chile and Argentina. But I had no idea what green meant until this past weekend (5th of november to the 9th of november). This story is on its way, it will be another super long blog with a bajillion of photos, so keep checking back for it!
