Chile: Part 1

Here are the two emails I wrote home during the trip. We also Skyped, so that is why I didn't email more than that. I figure I'll start with them, since I got into pretty good detail. Once I get pictures uploaded, I will post again with some of them and write some more about the trip.

Feb. 12th

Hi Everyone,

We had a great day today. We attended church in the Republica ward. It
was a little rough going to Relief Society by myself, and I understood
nothing when I was introduced, but there were two women who knew
English there. One of them, Cecilia, asked me to sit by her after she
found out how little I understood Spanish. She turned out to be an
investigator. She was moving last weekend, and got mixed up on the
date of her baptism. She had thought the 4th was Sunday, and late in
the day on Saturday she thought to look at the calendar and realized
she had missed it. She didn't have the missionaries' number, and they
lost hers when their SIM card got switched out. So, she showed up to
church today and nobody had realized she was there or were looking for
her, as she had moved out of the ward. She started to say to me that
she thought that maybe it didn't happen for a reason, but after our
talk she told the missionaries that she needs to find her new ward and
meet the Elders there so she can set a new date for baptism. She spent
the rest of the afternoon with us. Aaron's old friend, Luis, who was
sixteen and had gone on splits with him each night for six months was
there and has a car and offered to take us up San Christobal. We also
drove to many other places to see the sights. It was really fun
getting to know them both. Luis served a mission in Vina del Mar and
is a civil engineer, working for the government. Cecilia is a grandma
and an artist (a really good one - she has always earned her living by
her paintings and she gave me a bookmark that she made and laminated).
She grew up in a Navy family, and her dad was working for the U.N. as
a diplomat by the time she was 13. He put the children through private
schools and she learned not only English but also French. She was a
very intelligent and spiritual woman, and has been looking for a
personal relationship with Heavenly Father for five years. She just
finished reading the Book of Mormon, and had some great insights about
it. One of her sons is studying classical guitar at the university.
One of her daughters is married to an Atlanta-based Delta management
person that we would guess Reo has probably run into. They live there
and have some children. The other son is currently traveling.
we exchanged contact information and I am sure I will have a Chilean
pen pal for years to come.

We head out to Puerto Montt in the morning, and we do not know how
much Internet access we will have, if any, so don't worry if you don't
hear from us until Thursday.

If anyone needs anything, shoot us an email tonight or we will miss it.



Feb. 15th


We haven't had any Wi-Fi in a couple of days because we are kind of in
the middle of nowhere, so sorry you have not heard from us in a while.
But this is a good thing because we have had some real adventures. Our
first day in the area, we went to the Island of Chiloe by ferry in
search of penguins and good seafood. Unfortunately, we did not find
the best seafood, but we managed to get on a motor boat tour to see
the penguins. The tour operators are limited as to how many tours they
are allowed per day, and they were all full, but thanks to some road
construction (and good  karma - ha ha), the people who were booked on
the next tour did not show up in time and we got to take their places.
It was really neat to see them, and we also saw sea otters in the
water.

We took the ferry back that night and headed for our cabana, which is
just outside Ensenada. We got in really late, due to the road
construction I was referring to earlier, so when we arrived we had an
excellent display of the stars. There is so little light pollution
where we are that we could see more stars than I have ever seen
before. That is also due to the fact that we can see a large band of
the Milky Way that is not visible in the northern hemisphere.

In the morning, we went in search of food. Although there are other
tourists in the area, in this town there are no good restaurants. We
settled on a Supermarcado in town and got some juice, yogurt and
blueberry kuchen. Yes, that is German for cake. Yummy! There is a
little German influence out here, and the cakes are freshly baked and
only available in the morning.

After breakfast, we headed for the waterfalls. It was a short hike
there, with shopping and snack huts along the way (a strange intrusion
on nature). The waterfalls are beautiful, and the water is so clear
you can see the rocks at the bottom of the bed at the bottom. This is
all with a snow-capped volcano in the background. This is actually the
reason for the waterfalls, which are running over piles of volcanic
rock.

Next, we took a 3-hour horseback ride along part of a massive lake and
through the woods. Aaron has never been on a horse before, but did
great. His horse was content to follow along and do what it was
supposed to. Andria's was also pretty good, but Will's and mine did
not do quite as well. Fannie, my horse, was at first quite stubborn,
as was Will's. She did not want to listen to my directions, but
finally realized I meant business when I got off her and picked up
switches for both Will and me. We didn't even have to use them before
they started behaving, although they did need a few little taps later
to get them moving when they had decided to stop to graze.

After we rode, we again tried to hunt down some food. We had thought
to find a decent meal at a restaurant, but everything either  looked
as bad as the place we had eaten the night before or it was between
meals and only had one option. We finally settled on empanadas from
the Supermarcado, which were not as good as the ones we got in
Santiago, but filled us up a little.

We then drove up the volcano. The road wound back and forth at a steep
incline. There were places to stop on the way up, and I did pretty
well until we got to the top parking area. By then, the altitude had
gotten to me and I had some nausea and a light headache. I stayed in
the car while Aaron, Will and Andria climbed almost to the snow cap.

Realizing that we would not find decent food in this town, we drove to
Puerto Varas to try to find dinner. Aaron had thought that Valentine's
Day was not a big deal down here, but boy was he wrong! I have never
seen so many cars parked around a town as I saw last night. There were
thousands of people trying to get dinner there. We went from
restaurant to restaurant, trying to find something both with decent
food and an empty table. Everything was booked until we saw a sign for
a restaurant inside a casino. It turned out to be just the place. It
was all decked out for Valentine's Day. We were not really dressed for
white linen, but we swallowed our pride in our jeans and sneakers and
sat down. We had not yet seen the menu, and when we sat down we found
that there was a special three course meal being served, complete with
a series of wine couplings and a dessert which included mouse with
cappuccino in it. Luckily, we were able to have the alcohol removed
from the meal, as well as from the bill, and there were three mini
desserts, so we were able to eat the other two. The rest of the meal
was great, though. It was a very artistic meal and we only knew about
half of what we were eating, but the favors were fantastic. There was
even raw tuna served over squash, but I ate it and was surprised to
liked it. But maybe it was just that I was so hungry at this point
that I was willing to make myself like it. One of the desserts was
made with rose petals in it, and tasted like roses. It was amazingly
good. Another was formed into the shape of a rose. I felt like I had
tasted it before, and it took a while to figure out what it was. You
know how in a box of chocolates, there is normally a strawberry-filled
one with nugget in it? It was just the filling.

The drive home was late. We finally got back and dropped right into
bed, although it would have been nice to look at the stars for our
last night here, but it was 1 am, and we were tired. We were able to
sleep until 9:30am before getting into a shower that was determined
not to stay warm. Now, my hair is air drying and I am snuggled up in
my bedcovers in a comfy chair in the living room next to the fire
place. This cabin is pretty awesome. It is much nicer than I was
expecting, other than the annoyingly sporadic water heater. We had
yogurt and cereal that is much like Coco Puffs and hot chocolate and
juice that we purchased yesterday at that same Supermarcado when we
picked up our lunch. We think will be taking it easy until the Woods
take us back to Puerto Montt this afternoon.

(later) Just arrived at the Hotel San Martin. We have Wi-Fi here, so
we will leave Skype on tonight in case you need to contact us. We are
pretty exhausted, so unless you have some urgent need, we will contact
you tomorrow to Skype.