The farm

The farm, January 28th

We arrived on the farm, near Puerto Varas, Chile, 11 days ago. We will be here for a month, total.

First off, it feels lovely to settle in and fully unpack.  We have discouraged our kids from unpacking everything at previous stops so as not to lose things, and to reduce the amount of packing time spent a few days later. (Even so, some very beloved toys have gone missing, likely long gone.)

I think if our kids had their choice they might move here permanently.  We are staying on a working farm; something more than a hobby farm, but possibly a little less serious than a commercial farm because part of their income comes from guests staying in cottages.  So they will, for example, stop their farm work to help guests ride horses. 

We have loved every moment of our stay here.  There is a lot of fruit & vegetable picking (raspberries, plums, cherries, Fava beans), animal interaction (calves, alpacas, kittens, horses, dogs), and a lot of kids (4 that live here full time, 3 additional this week, all of whom speak english).

We just got off the river after a day long rafting trip with the kids.  The first few rapids were real deal, whitewater, class 2 (so they say, though I swear they would call it class 3 in the states.). It was an awesome trip, with a super friendly guide. The only downside was a fly we have been introduced to variously as “Davanos” or   or “colohuacos”.  These things are severe.  They apparently only live for about 2 weeks each January, and first arrived while we were in Villa la Angostura.  We have since read a lot about them because they plague us.  They are basically a large, slow moving horsefly.  If they land on you and you don’t notice within about 10 seconds, they give you a painful bite that itches for a few days. They like to live near water, and are attracted to dark colors. On the water today, we were in a swarm of them for hours. We killed them constantly, and had hundreds of dead flies on the bottom of the boat, but made no dent in their population.

Interestingly (and grossly) the resident kids here have taught our children that if you tear apart the fly there is often a sack of honey inside of them. It involves tearing off the head and wings first, and throughly grosses me out, but our kids love the challenge of trying to catch them with a reward of honey.  This is exactly the sort of “cultural experience” I was hoping for for our kids, it just happens to be a gross one.

The other family currently at this Airbnb is a family of five from Washington state. Our kids love their kids, and we have been visiting with them nightly, and will see them in a few weeks further south.  They leave tomorrow for an adventure south in their camper van.  As much as it has been amazing to meet locals, it is the English speakers from abroad  that we mostly bond with.  Feeling like we are in the same boat with them, and having similar struggles, unites us. This family is traveling around South America for a year, ending this coming June.

There is much more that I am forgetting, but if I don’t post this I will forget to do so.  More to come. Possibly penguins at our next stop.