La Primavera!

Versiculo de la Semana
"Porque he aqui ha pasado el invierno, se ha mudado, la lluvia se fue; se han mostrado las flores en la tierra, El tiempo de la cancion ha venido, y en nuestro pais se ha oido la voz de la tortloa." Canateres de los Cantares 2:11-12

Spring has begun here in Chile, along with rain, green budding trees, and the smell of fresh cut grass. I only hope that whatever Chris and I are allergic to in the states during spring time isn't blooming down here. We didn't even think about bringing allergy medicine, though with a pharmacy on every corner here, I'm not too worried about it. And the flowers are so pretty, I couldn't resist bringing some into our "home."
Mas Fondas
Last week was rather quiet around the city, with most residents out of town for vacation. On the actual days of the independence celebration (18th and 19th), it is illegal to ask your employees to work, they must do so on a voluntary basis. So that meant that even the BigJohn (7-11 where we get our water and use an ATM near the hotel) was closed, along with the grocery store, many restaurants, and of course all businesses. The LAN engineers also took the week off, so work was quiet for Chris as well. On Tuesday the group had the afternoon off and we all went back to Parque Hurtado for some more tasty Chilean food and independence celebrations. We posed for some pictures:

Chris and I competed in a mechanical bull riding contest, which I WON. The prize was a yo-yo. I gave it to a small child (after Chris played with it for the rest of the afternoon).

Then, still filled with the competitive spirit, we returned for another session of dance lessons for the Cueca (the national folk dance of Chile) and were one of the top six pairs (chosen likely for our humorous gringo version of the dance). The prize was a glass of Chicha from our favorite barbeque stand, and after all that dancing we were thirsty for it. This first picture shows the stiff competition we were up against.

Following our dance, we left the park to go to another park for another fair with Pastor Karim and his family and friends from the church. While waiting in line to purchase our tickets, Chris spotted a Chilean sporting a 787 hat and snuck a picture.

At this fair, in the Parque Ines Suarez, we witnessed lots of kite fliers (popular activity here, you see many caught in the trees at city parks) and even a circus!

Wednesday night the fesitivies continued with a military parade just a block away from our hotel. It was quite a long procession of soldiers in their various formal uniforms, including lots of marching bands and horses.

Parque Metropolitana
Since school was out for the week, I had a lot of time to wander about the city. I found out that our hotel is less than a mile away from one of the entrances to the Parque Metropolitano de Santiago. I hiked around for awhile and saw all sorts of interesting trails, bikers, families picnicking, and vistas with great views of the city. Chris and I returned later together to hike around for awhile, and really enjoyed the feeling of being in nature, but within walking distance from our hotel!

787
The 787 will make it's first commercial flight on Monday, and in the meantime LAN has been running test flights and such. Chris had the chance to tour the plane, and here are a few pictures showing what life on the airplane is like.

Cajon de Maipo
This past weekend we were thankfully able to rent a car, and so on Saturday we decided to drive out of the city toward Cajon de Maipo, which is in the Andes mountains. We originally had hoped to take advantage of the final ski weekend of the season, however conditions were not ideal on the mountains (only 50% of the runs were opened, and there were many with exposed rocks), so we thought we would hike instead. We drove through Cajon de Maiop, which consists of small villages along the Maipo River, and kept going once it turned into a dirt road. Our guidebook mentioned hiking in the area, and so we decided to keep driving until we reached Parque El Morado (the purple park). Here are a few pictures of our drive, including some "wild" horses we saw.

At one point, we reached what we were certain was the end of the road. A group of people, about our age and from the city, was sitting along the side of the road with backpacks and camping gear. We pulled over to ask them directions, and before we knew it they had packed up their gear into the trunk of our rented nissan mini-SUV and all four of them had crowded into the backseat. Some may call this picking up hitch-hikers, we like to think we were giving some new found friends a ride, though none of us really knew exactly where we were going. We just followed along the dirt road through the mountains. The road, for much of the time, was like this:

Thanks to Chris' expert driving, our laughing and crowded group made it to the "campsite" where we were pleasantly surprised with some aguas termales, or hot springs (we somewhat expected them, based on the guidebook, so had our swimsuits thankfully). It was very rustic, but SO beautiful to be sitting in a hot bath of water (slightly muddy from all the clay sediments) and looking out over the jagged snowy peaks of the Andes.

The top picture shows the cascading pools. The further down you go, the cooler the water is. The source is near boiling, at least it felt that way, so we only stayed at the top for a few minutes. The second picture above shows the "campground" where our new friends pitched their tent for the night, and a few other campers were setting up as well.

After splashing around in the pools for awhile, we got back in the car (alone this time) and started the journey back to the city. Then, as we passed a "restaurant" along the side of the road, the aromas drew us back, and we turned around and enjoyed a lunch of Cazuela, a type of stew. Click HERE for a recipe, it was yummy! Okay, the broth was tasty, the meat was somewhat tough and slightly unidentifiable, though apparently it was beef.

On the return journey, we managed to carry a few other weary travelers with us (apparently a very common mode of transportation, hitching a ride by sticking out your pulgar). One kind fellow ran a horseback riding business with excursions into the mountains, and he gave us his number so we could enjoy a free ride on some horses in thanks for the free ride we gave. Here are a few more images of the beautiful mountain area we drove through:

Cumpleanos!
We arrived back from our adventure around 5:30, and since we had been invited to a birthday party that evening for dinner (which didn't start until eight), we took the few free hours to play cribbage and eat ice-cream outside in a cafe not far from the hotel. As we were leaving for the birthday party, some of Chris' coworkers invited us to join them at a restaurant for dinner. We told them we were going to a friends' house for a birthday, and they were surprised that we knew people in the city. It has been a true blessing to find community with the church, Comunidad Vida, and to be so welcomed that after two weeks we were invited to Brett's (Kay's nephew) birthday. The food was tasty and Peruvian, the pisco sours were strong, and the cake was dulce de leche. We returned home after midnight, understanding why church doesn't start unil 11:30.
Pomaire
Sunday afternoon, we decided that since we still had the rental car we should drive out of the city and explore a little after church. I found a town not too far away that specializes in clay pottery. The official web site of Pomaire made it seem like a quaint town to enjoy artesania and pottery. After spending a few hours there, one could perhaps categorize it as a tourist trap. But they were famous for pottery, especially the three legged pig, which is meant to bring good luck (each leg stands for amor (love), dinero (money), and salud (health). I really wanted a pig, or Chanchito, for my classroom, and I thought maybe one of the shops would have a particulary nice one. Or maybe something different to offer. I was always hopeful. So hopeful, that I did end up going into a few (maybe almost all) of the stores. Chris, unbeknownst to me, was taking pictures every time I entered a DIFFERENT store, to show that they really were pretty much all the same. I will include maybe half the pictures he took, and let you all decide :)

Again, those were just a few of the many shops and pictures, but we were able to get a good laugh at the end of the day. I would say looking back Chris is amazingly patient. And we did get a pig :) Here are a few more pictures from our adventures in Pomaire, which is also home to the world's largest empananda.

They call these giant pieces of baked bread "tortillas" and they sell for about a dollar. I couldn't tell you what they taste like, as my carbo-loading had reached it's max for the day.

The flowers above are actually made out of bark/wood. I think they are really pretty, but of course virtually impossible to bring home (though I promise Chris any knick-knacks I purchase will go straight to my future classroom, not to clutter our home). I think Chris was slightly tempted by this giant clay ET however...

And at the end of the day, I was thankful to be on the road again back to the city and our home/hotel. At least I wouldn't have to pay $100 pesos to use THIS bano :)