Chile, pt 4 Villa Rica, y Pucon

After Valparaiso and Vina del Mar,
we boarded a plane and flew to the lake district, in the southern part of Chile. It is amazing how little we knew about Chile. We flew into an area that had a ton of snow covered volcanos . I started snapping photos in the air!
This volcano is named Villa Rica, and the town that is near it is also called Villa Rica. It is awesome to see this huge volcano as you drive around! I once asked Andy Young, some of you know him, if he could go anywhere in the spanish speaking world for a year, where would he go. He said the lake district of Chile. I had no idea what he was talking about. Now I do! It is so beautiful.
The family at Lake Villa Rica, with the Volcano in the background!
We are constantly trying to get Natasha on a horse, as we haven't been able to find good riding near us. We went on this amazing ride, with the volcano in the background. There was a ton of open grassland for us to walk around, and Natash had the chance to run as much as she wanted to! It was beautiful to see the smile on her face.
We were trying to get Natash with the volcano, it would have been better if I had made a movie. What a glorious day!

Then we went to Pucon, which is a sweet town near Villa Rica. It is a gateway to some amazing adventuring, like skiing and climbing on the volcanos and rafting. It sort of felt like Estes Park, except less cheesy. This woman had a little shop that sold flowers. All of these flowers are made of wood. They were so cool.

It is hard to believe they are wood, isn't it?

She let us try to make some. It was much easier when she did it.

Painting the middle, then they blow the color on. It was so pretty and cool.

These were our guides. Juan Pablo on the left, and Patricio on the right. They are at a lake outside of Pucon that has a volcano inside of it. They were super sweet, although Juan Pablo was sick, and after this part of the trip, Joe and Alexander both felt crappy for a while.

A nice photo of the kids, near an old boat at the same volcano lake.

Alexander at the same lake. I like how this photo came out.

The lake goes underground, and resurfaces at these beautiful waterfalls. The color of the water was amazing. We hiked around. it's funny how we are all doing well traveling around, but we all feel really good when we are near nature. This place had beautiful trails all around. It was hard for me to stay with the gang and not take off for a run!

Here is a rare one! I'm really on this trip! You can tell that Chile was cool. It was the beginning of Spring there, sunny, and cool enough for a scarf and a fleece. Hard to think about spring in October.

We don't know why this photo came out this way, but Alexander took it and we love the movement of it.

I have finally convinced Alexander to try to smile in photos, after showing him so many photos that would have been much nicer if he had been smiling. Wait til you see the ones in Belize. We thought if he had been a Junior it would have been cool to have his senior photo taken in Chile.

Chile part 3, Vina del Mar

After we finished our tour of Valparaiso, we continued along the beach, for about 10 minutes, max, and we were in a very modern beachfront community called Vina Del Mar. We had lunch in a yummy restaurant with Hugo and his dad, who drove us around, Renee. It was lovely.
The Pacific ( Do you know it means peaceful in Spanish) Ocean is very cold in Chile. The Humbolt Jet Stream, which comes by way of Antartica, moves through the water here and it is always cold. Natasha told us that she has always wanted to travel to Antartica. Knowing her, if she really wants to, she will go someday!

This photo shows the hillside in Vina del Mar. It is super modern. Such a difference from Valparaiso!

This is my crazy daughter, checking out the water! The rest of us put our toes in!

Chile part 3.1

I wanted to post this photo. It is the justice center in Valparaiso. Check out the statue. You know how Justice always has her arms out, with balanced scales? Well this one has everything in one hand and she is really tired. Our guide Hugo didn't know why she was like this, but I think there must be an interesting story behind her!

Chile part 2

Hi! Sorry it has been so long since I have added anything on our blog. It has been a crazy and great month of travel and visits. This is the second part about Chile. We drove to two cities next to each other on the Pacific Ocean. The first is a beautiful place called Valparaiso. It is an old port and is absolutely beautiful. It has a long history of pirate attacks and travel, and you can feel the history as you travel around. We drove to the port first and walked around a bit. There was a slight smell of tear gas in the air and we found out that there was a dock workers strike that morning which was taken care of! Things in Chile have changed since Pinochet, but the sense of police there is still powerful.
Joe took some photos of the strike and this huge armored truck! Yikes.

There are these cool rail cars that go up to the hills all around the city. We rode one up to walk around. This is us above the port. It is like an artist colony now and the graffiti and murals were amazing.

The photo below shows how steep and funky the roads and buildings about the port are! This house was modeled after a ship. Cool, huh?

There was graffiti all over the place. This was stenciled on one of the walls! Interesting.

This is one of the old buildings that was a rich merchant's home many years ago. Now it is a museum. Check out the artwork!

More Graffiti. This one is for you Jim Jones. I could hear you laughing as I was taking this photo!

This green head was one of my favorites. It was so huge. Ethan, It reminds me of the artwork that you and I do.

This is a row of houses in the town. I think it would be very hard to be in a bad mood waking up everymorning to these amazing colors. Valparaiso was incredible!

Chile: Santiago

After 9 weeks of school, the kids have a two week break, and we decided to go to Chile.
Joe has been working with a wonderful guy named Carlos, who lives in Santiago, for 12 years and has never met him. This was the moment of the meeting!
We stayed in this amazing hotel, in downtown Santiago. It was so cool to think that we were in South America. I kept trying to compare it to something that I knew, but I couldn't.


This is a view from our hotel window. It is through the glass, but it shows downtown, sort of. It is definately a city, 6.5 million of the 16 million people in Chile live in Santiago. It is super clean, and a lot of fun to walk around. It felt safe and exciting. Joe had been on a business trip in Sao Paulo and Rio in Brazil, and met us in Chile! How cool. We spent the first day touring the downtown area. Sounds kind of boring, but it was so interesting.


Sorry this is sideways, but this is the place that we had lunch the first day. It is called, "Como Agua para Chocolate" ( Like Water for Chocolate) after the book by Laura Esquival. If you haven't read it, you should. Anyway, why it is here in Chile... no clue, but was beautiful and yummy.

This is Alexander overlooking the city. The next few photos are from this overlook, which is on the tallest part of the city. It was beautiful. I'm not sure if you can tell, but pollution isn't a problem here. It is very clean.

Another view of Santiago.
Those mountains are the Andes. You can't see them every day, but they are huge, like 20,000+ feel. So cool. And of course we talked all about the Uruguayan Rugby team and the whole plane crash story. Another must read, if you like adventure stories. Joe actually flew the route that their plane took from Montevideo to Santiago to meet us.

This is in the downtown area, just across the street from where the president of Chile works. Our guides name is Hugo, and he was awesome. Speaks Spanish, English, French, who knows what else. We were with him for a few days.

This is the presidential building. It was this part of the building that was attacked and destroyed in the military coup that ended Salvador Allende's career and life in 1973. Hugo told us the story of the events that happened that day. It was amazing to stand there and to listen to the story.

This is the changing of the guard at the presidential building. The guards work 48 hour shifts inside the building and then change. It was cool to see. And if you look close, there are women guards. Oh, the president is a woman too! She is very well loved in Chile. Unfortunately, they have 4 year term limits and she is about to leave her position in December.


The photo below is a statue of Salvador Allende and the one below is the quote under it. It is right in front of the presidental building.


It says, "I have faith in Chile and her destiny" Sept 11, 1973. The day he was overthrown and killed? Or committed suicide?? We heard both stories. They call ours the other Sept 11th.


We happened to be in the square on the 20th Anniversary of the end of Pinochet's rule. People were holding a rally to support the end of his reign at the Allende statue.

This was taken in the presidential square, too. I thought it was interesting that the old buildings were right next to this modern one.


Another view of the square with a statue of O'Higgins, one of the heros of Chile. Irish father, Chilean Mom.
The next day we left for Valparaiso, and Vina del Mar. I wanted to post something about Chile, cause we are leaving for Belize tomorrow, and I haven't posted in a while.
I hope to post a bunch upon our return.

Joe is in Colorado for a week, til Sunday, if you are reading this from Colo, give him a call!