Cumpleaños de Abuelo - ochenta años!

This past week was the families' abuelo (grandfather's) birthday. The family had been planning a big bbq in Algarrobo for a few weeks in advance. I guess abuelo had been planning to go there that Sunday, so the whole family surprised him! So we all hung out, it was a gorgeous day and had a bbq and talked and just enjoyed the lovely weather.

Here are some photos of the day:

These are photos of all the grandkids and great grankids.

This is Javiera or Javi, my cousin here. Don't know if I have ever posted a photo of her. She is such a sweet person. I'm a little sad though because yesterday she moved out of the house to go live in Casablanca with the grandparents and Marcelo. I guess she just had too many problems with Pili. Hopefully I still get to see her a bunch though!

It was actually super cool, Abuelo loves mexican music, so they found a traditional mariachi band to come and sing a few songs for us. We all had really high hopes for it, but in the end it wasn't as great as we thought. I still liked it though. The family was a little upset that they were late, and didn't sing that many songs for the price they spent on them. But oh well, abuelo was surprised and it seemed that he really liked it, so thats all that matters. :) I know Marcelo took some videos, so I will have to try and get them from him to show you all.

Más de mi casa aca en Chile!

I have kept to my promise and taken more photos of my house here in Chile. And I think this time I have gotten pretty much all of the house!

Outside of the house:

This is Pili's cute little red car. I am starting to miss driving, its so weird, I would have never thought that was possible!

This is the view from about where Pili's car is, looking towards the house.

This is the side of the house. If you follow this walkway, you will reach Erin's window and a basketball hoop of the boys. And if you looked up from Erin's window, you would see mine! :)

This is the area right after where the cars are parked. This is the only little area of grass (pasto) we have. Isn't it quaint.

This is back where we hang the clothes to dry, just a wall of pots with plants.

This is the table that Marcelo made in the same style as the cake stands. We eat almuerzo (lunch) out here on nice days. It is so nice and relaxing.

Just another photo of the pretty table!

Some of our pretty flowers, that are always blooming! Yeah I love them.

This is the front door.

Downstairs:

This is the front door closed, sorry its so dark.

And once you walk in the front door this is the view. Right up the stairs and into my room if the door is open. Lovely I know.

This is the living room. Once you walk in the front door, this room is on the right.

This is another part of the view when you walk in the front door. So if you don't go up the stairs you and go straight and it will take you to Erin's room which is at the end of this hall, or her bathroom with down there too.

This is the view from inside the living room. You are obviously looking at the dining room, or comedor in spanish. We use this mainly for storage of all the things for Pili's events, things are always coming off this table. But it is also used for big family dinners, or its a place for the kids to study when they have friends over and study groups.

So after walking in the front door if you don't go straight or take a right, you can take a left which will take you into the informal dining area, and the kitchen. Where the family usually hangs out.

So here is the kitchen which you have all seen from cooking classes. And there is Pili and Erin cooking away. I actually think I took this before one cooking class one day.

So then off the kitchen is another little hallway that takes you to the computer room and Javi's room in one direction, and the other direction outside to where the laundry room is and then outside where we hang dry all the clothes. But in that hallway, looking straight from the kitchen, you walk right into the dispensa or pantry in english.

And then this is the laundry room. We only have a washer, they don't use dryer's here.

So thats why we have lots of clotheslines and drying racks outside.

And more photos of the clotheslines. I think I want to have one of these when I get back to the states, and use it in the spring and summer. Good way to conserve energy.

Upstairs:

Alright so this is the view from my bedroom doorway. It is directly in front of the stairs.

And then if you walk past my bedroom, right in front of you is the bathroom. But if you turn the corner, this is the hallwa upstairs, and at the end of the hallway, is the rooms of: Pili & Tuti, Maite, Ignacio and Gabriel. Oh and right at the end of that hallway is another bathroom. The bathroom (baño) of The boys and Pili and Tuti. Maite and I share the bathroom by my room.

This is Maite's room. It used to be Constanza's when she lived here. And Maite had my room. But now that Constanza's doesn't live here anymore, Maite gets the bigger room! It's cute, but I just took a quick photo from the doorway.

This is Ignacio's room. It looks almost empty. It's pretty much the only room in the house without a lot of decoration.

This is Pili and Tuti's room. It has the best view in the house. Which I have photos of that view further down.

So after walking down the hallway upstairs and then turning back around this is the view. So on the left of the photo is mine and Maite's bathroom, and then on the right you can see the door of my bedroom.

And this is mine and Maite's bathroom. It's the biggest in the house.

Views from the house:

Views from Pili's room:

I took these the other night. The sunset was just so gorgeous, so Pili sat in her room and watched the sun go down. I would love to her view to wake up to every morning. I mean don't get me wrong, creep polish neighbor guy is interesting, but I think I would prefer the ocean view much more.

View from window right outside my bedroom:

I took this on a day that started out clear sky and NO clouds. But within like a 20 minuter period, the clouds rushed in and created this foggy stuff. And then it lasted for the rest of the day. This happens sometimes. I mean beyond those clouds are tall buildings, not like anyone would know from the picture though! But I guess this is what happens when you live by the coast. Fine by me though, I'll take it if I get the ocean as well.

This is actually the garden view below my window. That is a lemon tree and then all kinds of pretty flowers. I really love it.

La cuarta región aventura

I am finally getting a chance to get back to catching up on my blog. And this post is dedicated to my little weekend trip (last weekend - october 9-12th, and probably by the time I actually finish this blog it will be the weekend before that) to the 4th region of Chile. I live in the 5th region, so we drove like 5 hours north to the 4th region.

Here is the list of places we went to:

Pichidangui

Coquimbo

La Serena

Valle de Elqui - las cabañas (La luna de cuarzo), Cochiguaz, el rio magico, las estrellas fugaz, hiking, english woman

Pisco Elqui

Huentelauquen

So friday night, "el equipo (the team)", this is what I decided to call the group: Constanza, Sergio Marcelo, Erin, and I. We all stayed at Constanza's house because the following day we were going to leave at 5 in the morning! Yeah I was a little shocked by this, but thankfully I knew I didn't have to drive so it could have been worse. It was hard to fall asleep that night though, because I was super excited for the trip and what all we were going to do and see. So when 5am rolled around, it took everything to wake myself up and get it together. We ended up leaving Viña around 6am, still before the sun came up, but we were all so excited the time didn't really matter too much.

(Just as a little note: I have so many photos from this trip, so this is just like a little overview with photos. You all will have to see the rest once I get home, or if I get the chance to add more to here later on.)

• Pichidangui: This was the first stop on the road. It was about 7am, and as you can tell we all had the faces of very chipper people!

This was a really quick stop. We just drove on into the little town, got out of the car all groggy really quick, snapped some photos for maybe like 10 minutes and then we were off again.

It was fun just getting the chance to stop at these little places along the way. Minus the strong smell of fish, maybe because we were right by the fishery, this place was so serene and quiet in the morning.

We only saw a few fisherman getting ready for the day. It was pretty, but I mean you can never go wrong with the view of the ocean.

Below is a quick photo that I snapped of "el equipo." And I even got Sergio in a photo, those are hard to come by!

Here is Erin and I. Er as usual is ready for the photo and then there is me who is always like, "huh? whats going on?" I wish I could blame it on the early morning, but unfortunately I think I look the same in all the photos from the trip.

• Coquimbo - this is the capital of the 4th region. It is a pretty big city, and it is connected to La Serena. It's like Valparaíso and Viña del Mar, but in another region. Oh and before this stop, there were more before it, but just more of side of the road stops. Little picnics on the side of the road, to eat the sandwiches we had prepared for the trip or have a cup of coffee or tea.

This boat looked like an old pirate ship from the road as we passed. After the cross we went back and took more photos of it. And there were actually two! I thought it was pretty neat looking!

I took these photos on the ride through the town. We saw that cross when we arrived and decided we wanted to go see it up close, and since it was on a mountain thing we would have a view of the whole city. So as we meandered through the streets looking for the way up to the cross this is what we saw. Look how small the houses are! But I must say I love all the colors, way better than the cookie cutter neghborhoods in Boise. Sorry Boise I love you, but not so much suburbia.

More of the little houses, but look at the pretty colors!

And these flowers, the colors were so vibrant! They spread all over the rocks, by that cross in the another photo.

The smoke was coming from one of the houses from down below.

My favorite part of this was that funky looking tree, I really liked it for some reason.

I loved these flowers and how they just covered the rocks. Very pretty.

This was a little black butterfly. I have never seen a black butterfly before. And yes I am sure you are all going to tell me a black butterfly is just a moth, but this is not a moth!

The girl half of "el equipo." The pirate looking boat was apparently quite the moment for a photo op.

La Serena - This was the joint city with Coquimbo. But I must say, La Serena is way more pretty. We didn't get to stay here too long. We drove through, looking at some of the town. We stopped at the beach and took some photos, ate a little snack and took some time to get out of the car. It's crazy how tired you can get just sitting in the car all day. But after that, we went to the supermarket, the name is Jumbo, its like a Target/Walmart to buy all of our food for our stay in Valle de Elqui, because this place is pretty much the middle of nowhere. Oh and also we went to a little part of La Serena where they have artesanias where we meandered around and tried some papaya juice. This area is known for its papayas as well as pisco. But the pisco is another adventure on the trip.

Me lost in thought or maybe just admiring the lovely view. Like always I am deep in my own world.

This is a faro or a lighthouse in english. And this is the faro that you see on all the postcards of Serena. Serena is known for its faros is what I was told, because like Valparaíso and Viña in the 5th region, these two cities were also main ports. So the faro is a symbol of Serena in less words I suppose.

I really liked the composition of the photo below. Erin nor I look that great, but the angles and the colors in the sky were neat to me.

This is us drinking our jugo de papaya (papaya juice), and let me tell you it was SO good! It was all natural and delicious!

This was some protest that was going on in Serena. It was something about wages. Nobody really knew. But there were all kinds of carabineros around making sure it didn't get out of hand. Oh and after waiting on the corner for the protest to pass by, there was quite the smell of marijuana, like I think I got a contact high and we were outside!

These are just some photos of the locals of La Serena. I think they were all gypsies, but not completely sure.

This is for sure a photo of the gypsies. I thought you all needed to see what they looked like. I am always telling my family that compared to the gypsies I saw in Europe, these one look a lot different.

This is what the carabineros look like, I can't remember if I ever showed you all. This guy was just out directing traffic. They definitely mean business here, and thats why the photo was blurry. I was a little nervous that I might get in trouble for taking a photo of him, so I took it as fast as I can. Hde pretty much stared me down as I had my camera pointed at him.

Just thought I would share this with you all. This was a piece of artwork being sold, but its of Don Quijote. The neverending story I am having to read here. I think I would actually like it if I had enough time to read it. My profesora is a little loca. We dedicate a semester to this book back home, but here a month and a half. No biggie right.

At one of the booths, a guy had little games, so of course we all stopped to try. All I can say is they were hard, definitely my cup of tea. I was thoroughly entertained as you can see to watch everyone else struggle. Marcelo was really good at them though, and he figured most of really quick.

A group shot (minus Sergio) to show we were in La Serena. Thank goodness for sunglasses, because I was exhausted by this point from lack of sleep and getting up at 5am! The weather was great here too, super warm. It was the perfect day.

Alright so after leaving La Serena, we started to make our way to Valle de Elqui. It was probably about another hour or two from the Coast. But this was the critical period in the trip for being sleepy, so we had to make sure one person stayed awake to keep an eye on the driver staying awake, all while the others got to peacefully sleep. Who knows why but I was wide awake, which was fine with me because the sights were beautiful! It reminded me so much of Idaho, what with the dry and green areas. We had one stop on the way at this reservoir and the amazing view of the valley below it. But this valley isn't Valle de Elqui, it was much prettier!

One thing we don't have much of, cacti!

This is just another photo on the road, the view was spectacular. Even when I did get tired I didn't want to close my eyes and miss something!

Here are girls, looking quite happy to be stuck in the car. I think this captures them so well though. Erin who always has a smile on her face, and Constanza who is always smiling as well, but has this elegance to her.

This is an ode to Marcelo, the driver of the trip. Well along with Sergio, but I could only quickly snap a photo of Marcelo. Thanks to them both, we made it safely because of them! And there was very little profanity yelled in the process!

Here are some of the photos of the valley by the reservoir. It was quite the view. This is what we were driving by coming from Serena, on our way from the coast and into Valle de Elqui. Very very pretty. This part of the drive really reminded me of Idaho. But Valle de Elqui did too.

This was actually pretty neat. So this was a sculpture, but it makes sound from the wind! By the reservoir, the wind was super intense, and this sculpture made the coolest sound. I wish you all could hear it.

And then this is a photo of the actual reservoir. On the other side, people were windsurfing, like tons of people! It was fun to see as we continued our drive.

And then of course I had to throw in a funny face photo of me. Yeah the wind was so nuts, but felt good on your face. Just look at everyone else's faces, and you can see how crazy the wind (viento) was.

So these photos are still on the road, but where we have officially entered Valle de Elqui.

This area was incredible, so pretty. We were driving on this long bumpy dirt road that had no railing in some parts, so when cars going the other direction wanted to pass, we had to pull over and I feared of the car falling on the edge of the mountain each time. Yeah definitely good times.

This was just some random waterfall on the side of the mountain. You could see no source for it. It was extra odd too because the mountain was so dry, I have no idea what the blurred thing it, something we passed as we drove by and quickly snapped a shot.

Valle de Elqui - So the main, most beautiful, or at least the most tranquil part of the trip has arrived. This part was most definitely my favorite part. I felt like we were secluded in the mountains, like in the middle of nowhere, especially at night. It was like my own little oasis. And to make it even better, there was a hippie village right down the street! Paradise right? :)

First, here are some photos of the hippie village, it was called El alma zen (the zen soul in english), perfect name for a hippie community right?

Just photos of some of the buildings in the village. I think I could have lived here, and been completely content with my life. Just me and my hippie friends and the tourists that would come and visit from all over the world.

I don't know what, but I loved the signs carved out of wood. I am such a nerd like that, but it gave this little town character

Also, this area of Chile is known all around the world for stargazing. It has all kinds of world famous observatories. I saw a few of them, but you didn't even need a telescope to see the amazing view. It was just incredible. Definitely a magical experience to see such a clear sky, it felt like I could reach out and grab some of those stars. And I also saw the south star, and Jupiter! Yeah I am cool like that.

La Luna de Cuarzo (las cabañas): this is where we stayed in Cochiguaz, the area in Valle de Elui where we were at. We stayed in a cabin style place, I loved it, and this place was beyond beautiful! It had the best view, and the whole place ran on river water, it had a pool full of river water! Also, at night it is prohibited to have lights outside, well more than a flashlight, because it is a secure area because of the stargazing. So at night we all had flashlight, two that went on your head, and we would stumble around outside in the pitch black. Super super fun!

Day one:

So this was a photo outside of the cabañas, and then a photo of the outside of our cabin. We had the biggest and best! Go el equipo!

This was out awesome hammack (hamaca in spanish). We didn't get a chance to really use it, but I just loved having it there! Yeah know, just in case. Lindsey would have loved it, she has quite the love of hammacks! ;)

This is what the inside of our cabin looked like. I loved it, it had tons of room, but was still quaint.

This was out little living area. It had two beds and a fireplace. But since we didn't need to use the beds it became the living space where we all gathered around the nice warm fire at night.

This was the kitchen area. We had everything like the pans, dishes and utensils provided, it was nice.

This room, the one with the bunk beds is where Erin, Marcelo and I slept. And surprisingly the beds were quite comfortable... or it could have just been the super long days so any bed would have been nice to snuggle into.

This room, with the one big bed was obviously Sergio and Constanza's.

This was the pool area. It was made of river rocks and always full of river water. It was beyond freazing, there was no way I would jump into that thing. Erin, Marcelo and Constanza did the next day though. Far braver souls that I am, or just completely insane, which ever you want to call it.

These are more of the pool. One is an up close of the bottom of the pool with the rocks.

And then these others are just of the beautiful sky as the sun was setting beyond the mountains. It was just too pretty not to show you all.

These last two of the night were after once (dinner) and relaxing with a drink or two. As usual Sergio and I are hiding under our hoods, or like Sergio in the other trying to hide behind the pisco bottle. He thinks no one can see him, such a nerd! So after these photos we headed outside and sat in the lounging chairs by the pool and stargazed. I saw 3 shooting stars this night, it was incredible. Words don't describe the view of the sky I saw here. I hope you all one day can see it as well because I know you will experience the same loss of words.

Day two: (the day of hiking a mountain, lounging by the pool and the magic rio, and of course stargazing to end the night).

Look at this lovely fellow we found in the morning in Sergio and Constanza's bedroom. I was surpised he was hiding somewhere near me because we all know how much insects and I get along!

Hiking Adventure:

Okay this was the view from the cabins looking to the mountains. This looks like Idaho to me.

This was the vie of one of the other surrounding mountains, we didn't climb this one obviously.

So in beginning our little trek, we first had to cross a little stream/river.

It looked all small and calm in some places, but where we decided to cross is had a little more rushing water. We had to cross a log, and of course since I am like the clumsiest person, I was the only person who almost fell in.

And then after crossing the river, it was of course time for a photo op. Such a happy bunch we were, but this quickly changed as the hike got harder. Not by my choice though. I am actually the one that wanted to hike the mountain, so everyone followed along, but I anted to follow the nice little trail, but the family decided to go straight up. The dirt was all soft, like hiking up sand dunes. Yep wasn't a huge fan of this idea, but I followed in suit with the group.

After the photo op, this was us contemplating how to get to the top and how freaking far it was. I was all down to go to the top, but not straight up. And since we took the straight up untrailed path, we never did make it all the way to the top. I was bummed, but oh well, it was fun just the same.

These are photos of us making the trek, more like trudging up the side of a mountain. But you guys get the idea. Marcelo was taking the photos as he led the way. I was wearing my chacos and kept getting rocks left and right in my shoes, I guess chacos aren't made for Chilean hiking!

And this was the view from we were decided to stop, We got about 3/4's of the way up. This is the view of our valley (cochiguaz), down below you can kinda see our cabañas. So after this little adventure, everyone was a little tired and ready to go relax by the pull. Almost all left the mountain with some kind of war wounds. I had all kinds of scratches, cuts, and got some bites too!

Lounging by the pool:

So as us girls and Marcelo layed out and enjoyed the sun...

Sergio who doesn't like too much sun, took a nap in the shade. And after this in the hammack, which was pretty much on the ground. Marcelo, the owner of this place offered us some fresh and natural juice while we sat out here too. It was fresh strawberries (frutillas) and pineapple (piña), it was like a smoothie, SO good!

El rio magico:

All just pictures of nature. This river (rio) was beautiful! There were camping spots all along the sides of it. I would have loved to have camped too, but couldn't imagine my whole family here doing that!

I found that the way these trees had fallen over time, and the shapes their branches/limbs made was awesome. All different kinds of forms. The boise fire department would be livid with all the debree in and around this river and would probably say the majority of it was unswimmable. But there were little pools and areas that were completely safe.

These bridges were really neat and we found a whole bunch along the little path we were following by the river. They were fun to cross as well.

And my family was very brave to try them out. It was more Marcelo, and he convinced first Erin to go in with him. I was on the fence, until I saw his face the first time he got in, and that was enough for me to say no. My feet were numb when I put them in. I passed on numbing my whole body, Sergio did too.

But in the end, Marcelo was able to even Convince Constanza as well. She screamed the whole tim because the water was like ice cubes, but they all seemed happy with their choice after. But isn't that always the case? Its god awful while doing it, but you instantly forget that and afterwards it was nothing but a fun experience. Yeah I didn't fall for that this time.

And then after the little swim, we all walked back to get an ice cream in the hippie village and then back to our cabin to get warm and clean and enjoy a relaxing evening until it was time to go out and Stargaze.

When it was finally time to stargaze, we really had to bundle up. It was like in the 70's/80's during the day with the strong sun, but at night it was super cold, like parka weather cold. t was awesome that night though, we maybe sat out for an hour or two, and I ended up seeing 12 shooting stars (estrellas de fugaz), now how rad is that! They all weren't really long, but I really did see 12. It was great, maybe my 12 wishes will come true! I am counting on the universe to work on all of them for me! :)

Day three: On the third day we really just got ready to go. We had to leave and go home, but before that we still wanted to go visit Pisco Elqui. So we just had one more nice relaxing morning in our peaceful cabin and then we had to leave and start back home.

This photo was actually from day two, but it was us in front of the sign of the name of the cabañas that we stayed at.

On the last day right before we left we decided to take group shots in front of the beautiful swimming pool with the backdrop of the mountains. They turned out pretty good.

To get these photos was quite the little story. We had seen the day before a family, they were speaking spanish but not well. Well the next day when we walked down to the pool to take some photos. We saw the woman and her kids. We (Marcelo, Erin and I) were all speaking spanish and then joking around how we needed to take photos to put on facebook. Well befoe that we had said hello to the woman, and her spanish was all broken up and you could tell she as from the states, but it was just so great that she was trying. And she heard us say Facebook and said she knew it (all in broken spanish), so we al had a little laugh. And then we decided we wanted a photo will all three of us but had no one to take it. So I asked the woman if she would do it, all in spanish, and she was super nice and said yes. So we started taking photos, not completely understanding her spanish, and then Sergio and Constanza came so we had to take more group shots. And then after the little photo sesh, we all thanked the woman in spanish. But Erin asked her where she was from. She said the states, so I asked where at, and she said Oregon. We told her we were from Idaho and she was so excited, it was so funny. She instantly stopped talking in Spanish and switched to english. So we found out she was living in Santiago for a year with some nature conservancy program. And she was so confused because she thought, since we all spoke spanish so well we were all chilean, and then after finding out we were from the states she thought we all were. So we had to set her straight. But her kids, who I don't think uderstood any spanish were even more excited than her to hear english. It was really funny. But such a super nice family. It kind of set the day off on a really good foot.

This was our goodbye Cochhiguaz and Valle de Elqui photo. What a way to end this part of the trip.

Pisco Elqui -

Before leaving Valle de Elqui all together, we made a stop in Pisco Elqui... the place known for its pisco. We definitely checked out some of the Pisco factories while we were here, Pisco Mistral was one of them. So of course we went to explore a little bit. It was a pretty fast visit, but fun to check out one more place before we started the long drive home.

Just a cool mural/mosaic.

The plaza in Pisco Elqui.

Candid. Marcelo is such a paparazzi.

We all got quite the laugh on this one. Look at my face, you read excitement all over my face I know!

After this little stop in Pisco Elqui, we began our trip home.No one wanted to leave. This is definitely a place you can go for many days and just relax. I would say a week would be perfect. But I think I could stay even longer. :)

Here are some photos on the ride back to Viña:

The drive back for the most part was right by the ocean, an incredible view.

Here we all are hanging out in the car. Constanza read for the majority of the trip back, and there is Erin smiling like always (she slept for most of the trip home)!

Here is another one of my goofy faces! I was full of them that day!

Thanks to our awesome driver, Sergio, who drove a lot of the way home. Marcelo and him switched off only a few times.

And while Sergio drove we all took photos, how nice of us right?

This is Marcelo doing his job when he wasn't driving, and that was to handle the music/the cd's. It was a very important job! Oh and I can't forget to comment on the hair, he was styling that day!

Huentelauquen -

This was our final stop on thr trip. We tried to stop here on our trip up, but it was like 8 or 9 in the morning and they weren't open yet. This area of Chile is known to have the best cheese empanadas (empanadas de queso). So of course on the trip home we had to stop, and it was perfect timig when we arrived, it being time for once (dinner).

These are pictures of the place we stopped at. But this was the photo on the trip up, because when we actually stopped on the trip back and got to eat, it was packed with people. But it was so worth it, the empanadas were amazing and super cheap too.

So after our last little stop, we made our way back into the 5th region of Chile and back home to Vña. It was nice to be back, but I think we all wanted more days on vacation!

This is a photos arriving home in Viña. You can see the ocean in the distance.

Overall, the trip was just amazing. I am so happy we got to do it. We we a lot to Constanza for pulling it all together, and making to extremely cheap. It was probably one of the best weekend adventures I have ever had! And now I can't wait for the next one in two weeks to Cajon de Maipo. So keep a look out for that adventure too. Knowing me it will be weeks later, but it will be up here eventually. And also look out for the other posts from my list, they will be coming soon too!