January 4 update

January 4

(We currently have no internet wher we are staying, so posts will have some lag time between writing and posting.)

We have arrived at our third stop.  After Santa Cruz (wine country), we hit up Salto de Lajo, the “Niagara Falls of Chile”, then on to Pucón, our current locale.  

We finished our stay in Santa Cruz with another round of stomach illness (minor, mine).  We also spent half our trip negotiating furnace repairs from afar, for one of our two rentals.  With a low in the neighborhood of -20, we were frantically trying to get SOMEONE to respond on New Years Eve weekend.  Took two days of international negotiation to finally get it repaired.

We spent our last morning visiting a fascinating museum in Santa Cruz about the Colchagua.  I can’t say the kids absorbed a ton, other than, as Greta put it “you mean there were creatures here before people lived here?”  Yes, dear Greta.  Though I guess you learned that earlier than many people do.

We drove 4 hours south, with lots of back seat fighting, to Salto del Laja.  Our tourist book played down this location, but I honestly loved it.  It was kitschy and charming, and genuinely a Chilean tourist destination.  Understanding the place you visit seems like it necessitates a trip to where that place vacations.  A visit to the Wisconsin Dells, for example, gives you some pretty good insight into Wisconsin and surrounding areas.  I mention the Dells because this place truly felt like a version of it.  Far less intense, but in the same vein.  Lots of kitschy souvenirs, many of them locally carved (I nearly bought Teddy a locally made ninja sword, but logic prevailed.). There was a lovely waterfall, and a short boat trip up a ravine that reminded me of Robert Tremain state park in New York (for those of you reading from that locale).  

There were abundant campgrounds, horse back riding, zip lines, etc.  we only stayed two nights, but did go horse back riding, and I thought MJs head would explode with joy.  It was a brief trip, and the staff led the horses, but regardless it was mj’s dream come true.  

Both nights at the campground were interrupted, somewhere in the 1 am range, with hours of a barking dog.  Shockingly, while I conjured the most evil treatment for the poor dog in my half sleep, the kids slept soundly through both nights.  I think the dog was keeping foxes at bay, or something similar, likely hunting the abundant chickens roaming around.   But it  was awful to try to sleep through.  It seems like the campground hosts should have put the chickens in a coop at night, for the sake of everyone’s sleep, but clearly I know little about  chickens.

Anyway.  We drove another 4 hours today, mostly down the Pan American highway (as with the other days).  The terrain has changed so drastically.  Santa Cruz was hot, with highs in the upper 80s (Fahrenheit).  We swam often just to cool off.  The fields were dry unless they were irrigated, and overall it reminded me of wine country in Northern California.  Salto del Laja was heavily forested and nearly 20 degrees cooler; we needed to bust out sweaters and comforters at night.  Here, in Pucón, it is probably another 15 degrees cooler, and we have the wood stove going.  Granted, we are in the mountains above Pucón, which explains some of the chill.

Today hubs realized he threw out his tourist card, given to him as we passed through immigration.  Inexplicably, we apparently need it in order to leave the country, which we plan to do next week when we cross into Argentina.  We all received one, and I held onto the kids and mine, though more so because I tend to not get rid of things than because I knew we needed it.  They just look like receipts, nothing worth holding onto (though I have a vague memory of being warned, time and again in Russia, that if I didn’t have the card given to me when I entered the country I could NOT leave; I think that memory guided my hand).  

More soon.