La Ligua, Valle Hermoso y Chalecos!

I still have one more little adventure from last weekend that I haven't gotten to share with you all. Last Saturday (5 de septiembre 2009), Constanza, Sergio, Marcelo, Erin and I (I think I need to come up with a name for our little group, it gets a little exhausting writing out each name every time) all went to a little country town up north about two hours away from Viña. Before going they all told Erin and I that it wasn't a touristy place, so the town itself was pretty dull, not much to see and nothing too pretty about it. But the cool thing about it to me was that we got to go to a little town that tourists don't see and really see how life is in these little places in Chile. But I thought they were all wrong, it was really pretty to me, maybe not the town itself, but the scenery around it was just amazing.

These are photos from the side of the road on our way to La Ligua. The scenery was just to pretty to not stop for a photo. Erin had a photo session while I took a bunch of photos on my own.

I think this was the first time we got to see some of the real Chile though, since it wasn't a real tourist area. The houses were really small and probably held a whole family... I think we got to see a little bit more poverty than I have yet to see. It was really interesting.

These are photos of Valle Hermoso... it was a really beautiful place!

These were just photos to show what the buildings looked like in La Ligua..very traditional and small town. I actually really liked it here. The people were incredibly friendly and I don't think they even realized Erin and I were foreigners. ¡Qué bakan!

So while we were there, we of course did shopping. La Ligua and Valle Hermoso are know for their knit works. They have a street dedicated to shops just for chalecos (knitted sweaters). We spent about 2 hours going through these shops looking at sweaters. By the end I was dragging, since I didn't see anything I was in love with, and most of the stores (tiendas) had the same kind of sweaters. But it was still fun, since my family here is great and always make for fun and interesting company.

It's heard to tell in this photo, but this whole street was lined with stores selling chalecos... I have never seen that many sweaters before in my life! Yeah and they were al hand-made, it was pretty awesome. Sadly I didn't buy any though. Constanza told me the people from Patronato in Santiago come to La Ligua to buy their sweaters and then take them to Santiago and sell them for a higher price. They just come here with suitcases, ready to make a killing on sweaters and then take them all to Patronato in Santiago. Gotta make a living somehow I suppose!

But besides knit works (sweaters, etc), La Ligua is known for its dulces (sweets), but especially certain types of pastries/sweets. They were absolutely amazing, so fresh and so cheap! I wish I could bring some home to share with you all because really without tasting them I could never do them justice.

These are the people that sell those amazing sweets! There are little stores that sell them in La Ligua, but it is more common to buy them from the people on the streets with these baskets. When you are on the highway coming into La Ligua, these people stand on the side of the highway with little white flags and in little white uniforms with their baskets selling the most amazing sweet treats.

This is the dulces look like! Increíble! They all have manjar (dulce de leche) inside... yeah pretty much in heaven when we all divulged into these things.

Out of all the kinds I tried, these were my favorite. They are soft and powdery and full of manjar. Yeah I don't think I have tasted anything as good. If only I could share with you all... I have a feeling customs wouldn't let these slip through though.

Well thats it for now... I am actually writing this post/well finishing it like two weeks since I have gone on this trip. But better late than never! I have many more experiences to share with you all... but its going to take a while to write it all. So more posts are going to come this week!

Chao for now! xoxo