Chile---part 2: pomaire, la playa, san antonio, vina del mar, valparaiso

Over the next few days, we (Shad, me, and the Albornoz family with whom we spent most of our time) drove a lot and visited several different places away from Santiago.

DAY FOUR

POMAIRE

The first town in which we stopped was a place called Pomaire. I'm not sure if it was because it was just a quaint little town, or if it was all the hand-made pottery and souvenirs, or if it was the people, but I really liked it.

We parked next to this shop that had beautiful, painted pottery. The sign that reads "2 x 1500", meant that you could buy two of those big pots for $3.00 (US). If you bought just one, it was $2.00. Crazy cheap! The sweet lady with the big thing of cardboard came walking out immediately after we parked and covered up the windshield on our truck to keep it cool. She also said she'd help keep an eye on it while we walked around town. Nice lady.

It was fun to see all the stuff people had out for sale. I'm sure a lot of it was homemade.

We bought a few small bowls from this place. If I wasn't worried about space on our flight home, I would have loved to get a 9x13 casserole dish and a big dutch oven. It was all so cheap, comparatively speaking.

More pottery.

One thing that I thought was interesting was that the trunks on some of the trees were painted white several feet up from the ground. I think they said it was to keep the ants off, maybe.

The jewelry was all very colorful. If I was more of a jewelry-wearing person I could have gone to town.

Clothing and hats, obviously.

More souvenirs. It was definitely a tourist town.

A lot of the cities and towns in Chile had vendors like the guy on the left in the picture below. Their goods are carried in their three-wheeled bike/carts that they ride around.

More pottery. I do wish that we had bought some more pottery because it was just cool. But we were worried about space and the possibility of it breaking during the trip home, so we held back.

And more souvenirs.

After enjoying our jaunt around town, we went back to where we were parked and visited the little shop with the kind lady who covered our windshield. You could see in the back where they made the pottery.

We did end up buying one of the red pots similar to the fat one in the middle of the picture below, as well as a smaller green one. Sweet Shad carried the big one home in his backpack as one of his carry-ons.

We drove a little more through town until we found a place to eat lunch. Underneath the glass tabletop were four divided sections that had different grains or beans in them as decoration.

The place we ate was at the end of a long row of shops and businesses.

They had several jams and other homemade stuff sitting out for sale, I assume.

And I just liked this shot of whatever those bread things are.

I ordered a cheese empanada. It looks a little better than it tasted--it was kind of crunchy and didn't have a whole lot of cheese, but it was still authentic, right?.

LA PLAYA

"THE BEACH"

After lunch we drove to the town of Quisco where Ana Maria's sister has a beach house.

This was the lock on the inside of the door. You can't come in the house from outside unless you have a key, leave the door ajar, or someone opens it for you. That's how a lot of the houses were down there.

This is not a picture of the place we stayed in---I just thought the tree to the left was really interesting. It isn't trimmed that way, that's just how it grows.

We unloaded our stuff from the truck, cleaned up a little bit, changed our clothes...

...then headed for the beach.

There was a pretty sweet cactus out on a big rock just off the shore. And although it might look real in this photo, the entire thing was made of metal. I don't know why they had a random metal sculpture of a cactus.

We were there in the Spring, so it was still a little early for the big crowds.

And here's the happy couple.

And here is Shad braving the water on our first day there.

I put this picture in to make it look like it was warm water and everything was good...

This was my idea of enjoying the beach that day.

There were several guys carrying baskets with all sorts of goodies. We tried some of the horse jerky (extremely salty and really hard to chew) and the meringue (pure, unadulterated sugar--so sweet I could feel my teeth rotting with each bite).

Patricia and Felipe basking in the sun, and shade.

So back to that "warm" water---this picture shows you more what the water really felt like.

Having fun in the waves.

Cold as all get out.

And here are the three water-goers, probably smiling because they are out of the freezing cold water.

Ana Maria and Dagoberto just stayed on the sand like me.

SAN ANTONIO

After the beach, we drove into a town called San Antonio. This is a random picture from there, but it shows a back-shot of one of the school uniforms. Each school has a different uniform, so you can tell where people go to school by what they're wearing.

I never got over the colorful fruit and vegetable displays. I really liked all the color that was everywhere we went.

This video is also kind of random, but it's a small taste of the "night life" on a non-busy night. There were always stray dogs, but I never did witness a good dog fight.

Dagoberto drove us out by the pier in San Antonio, and this is the best shot I got.

Everyone was so tired though, that this is what we looked like most of the drive.

DAY 5

SAN ANTONIO Cont.

San Antonio is a port city. I took a lot of pictures. This first random one just shows the police uniforms.

Almost every city has some type of market. It's called a 'feria'. We bought one of those mini soccer balls hanging in the right side of the picture for our kids--I'm sure we could have found them in the states, but it's cooler to say you have a ball from Chile, right?

A dirty, stray dog enjoying some peace and quiet. This was right in front of the feria.

A different school uniform than the first one.

Because most of the town was hills, that's where the homes were.

And here we have the port.

I forgot to mention that we made french toast for breakfast for them, complete with syrup, whipped cream and yogurt. They loved it.

The kids especially enjoyed the tube of whipped cream (which cost $4 US dollars for one can---not everything is cheap).

There were sea lions everywhere (the Spanish word for them translates into 'sea wolves').

Seaweed you could buy, to eat. Mmmm.

While in San Antonio, we met up with Carl, one of Shad's former missionary companions who happened to marry a Chilean and was living in San Antonio. He is in the military, so he isn't actually home very often, but he happened to be home at the same time we were there, so it was fun to see him and spend a good portion of the day with him and his daughter, Martina.

Shad raved about their desserts, so I took a picture.

There was a lot of raw fish and stuff everywhere.

And pelicans.

And more sea lions.

I just liked this shot.

This is just a random video I took while we were standing there talking. It shows some seagulls flying and the sea lions, but nothing terribly riveting, in case you're interested.

A seagull eating what's left of a fish.

This was Shad's favorite part of the day: a cup full of "cooked" shellfish that was bought for us as a treat. It was basically different shellfish with cilantro in a bath of lemon juice.

In order from the left, all enjoying their shellfish: Ana Maria, Carl (old comp.), and Shad (loving the shellfish). I had several bites, and besides the texture didn't mind it too much, but Shad being the better man ate most of it, and let's just say it didn't set well with him---I'll expound more later.

Martina enjoying her shellfish.

Back in the distance of this photo is a bunch of cement pillar looking things. I think they were to help break up the waves, or something.

And this is the whole group that hung out that day in San Antonio (from left: Carl, Shad, Angela, Felipe, Patricia, Dagoberto holding Martina, and Ana Maria.

A spray paint artist. There were quite a few of these around.

Boats, obviously.

The beautiful foliage display of the city's name, sort of.

After a while, Martina starting calling Ana Maria and Dagoberto her grandparents. It was really cute.

More boats, and boat rides.

We decided to go for a ride on the white boat.

There was a pretty good-sized group. The guy in the middle was the tour guide. You'll see him better in the video.

Listen to how fast he talks. Chileans talk very fast. Shad tried to translate bits and pieces, but the guide was talking quickly and Shad would miss out on pieces of information while he was talking to me in English. He did good though.

Martina brought her Drumstick ice cream treat on the boat with us.

Ana Maria is the one who bought it for her...

Sea lions on an old, rusty, forgotten boat out away from the shore.

I can't remember what this big building was called, but apparently it's a casino and hotel.

In case I haven't mentioned already, soda pop is the drink of choice down there (besides tea or coffee). We were served soda at every single meal, and in between, and any time we visited someone in their home. From having had pop maybe once every few months, I think my stomach adjusted pretty well to having 5-10 glasses a day. Anyway, Bilz was one of the flavors unique to Chile (or at least not available in the U.S.), and apparently it has a mascot.

This picture shows Shad trying to pick from a bunch of business cards to determine where we would eat lunch. There were at least six or seven different representatives from different restaurants, all hoping for our group's business. I'm not sure if the look on Shad's face is his hesitancy to decide, or if it's a reflection of how he was feeling at that point because of the shellfish treat.

In the end, he held all the cards up in his hand and had Dagoberto just pick one out of the bunch. My filming job is poor because I was trying to be inconspicuous.

After the restaurant was decided, we followed the lady who "won" down the street. Along the way, we saw a bunch of different people selling stuff on the streets.

This was kind of like a yard sale section--mostly clothes.

And jewelry---lots of colorful jewelry.

The restaurant we ended up at was nice. Shad offered to treat everyone beforehand, and suspects that Dagoberto's selection wasn't completely random.

This was our view from the window, smudges and all. Unfortunately, by the time we sat down to eat, the shellfish were having a hay day in Shad's stomach, and he wasn't able to enjoy his meal very much. He eventually excused himself for a few minutes, and returned feeling a little better, but the shellfish nausea still stayed through the rest of the night.

These boys had found a dead seagull on the beach and were having the time of their life with it.

Oh look, it's the happy couple again.

Another display of the city's name. We found out later from some friends in Curacavi that when they say the shellfish is "cooked", it's really not. Apparently someone thinks that when you put raw shellfish in lemon juice and cilantro, that makes it cooked. Shad's stomach thought otherwise.

This guy just saw me taking pictures and asked me to take their picture, so I did.

San Antonio was fun, and I'm glad we got to spend some time there, even if it did smell like raw fish the whole time.

This video shows us crammed into the truck right before we left the shore to take Carl and his daughter back to their home. Yes, there are six people in the back--so comfortable, really.

LA PLAYA AGAIN

Later that afternoon, we hit the waves again, or rather, they hit us.

And because it would be lame to go all the way to a beach in South America and not even get in, I got in for a little while. After I had gotten somewhat used to the temperature (somewhat being the key word), Ana Maria grabbed my camera and started taking pictures. Here we are right before the wave hit us.

And here we are right after.

And here we are getting out because we decided we were cold enough.

Seriously, the water was so cold that even just standing in it up to your ankles hurt (literally hurt) your skin. It wasn't water that you could get used to eventually. It was just always freezing cold.

We were told it was cold because of the water coming from the ocean down South. Whatever the reason, it's the coldest water I have ever been in.

DAY 6

VIÑA DEL MAR

The next morning, we drove past signs for Bambi on our way to a town called Viña del Mar.

At one point we stopped to get out and take pictures of the palm trees, and us.

Shad decided I needed to be in more pictures.

So everyone made an effort to get me in more shots.

Viña del Mar is right on the coast.

Felipe and Dagoberto having fun.

And in case you forget what city you're in...

There was a lot of posing for pictures in this city.

Anytime we were near a water fountain, drinking fountain, water anything, the kids just wanted to get wet.

Here we are posing in a big tree.

And posing by the big tree.

I told you they wanted more pictures with me in them.

VALPARAISO

After our quick visit to Viña del Mar, we visited another port city called Valparaiso. In this picture you can see one of the gondola rides up the hill to get to the tourist trap and homes up above.

It was actually pretty cool.

Again, the homes and streets were all on hills.

This shows some of the old buildings, but it also shows another lady who volunteered to watch our car for us.

There were a lot of souvenir shops. Valparaiso was much bigger than San Antonio.

We took the gondola ride up the hill and came across a row of people selling their stuff. These watercolors were pretty and fairly reasonable in price, so we bought one for us and one for Shad's aunt who does watercolor herself.

This is looking down the row.

This display sold all things "lapis lazuli". The blue stone is very rare and only found in a few places, Chile being one of them. It's also very pricey, because it's so rare.

I wanted to see this destroyer in action, but alas.

It was amazing how many ships and boats there were. The port was huge.

This is looking up one of the hills to see all the homes.

And this is looking down one of the many hilly streets.

If you click on the picture, you can see these closer, but it gives you an idea of what they drink. Shad and I would always choose Kem, Pap, or Bilz, simply because they were foreign to us. Coke, Sprite and Ginger Ale were very popular down there.

We stopped in a small café to eat lunch. The rolls and this sauce called 'aji' were very, very good. I could have gotten full off of just this.

Shad ordered some shrimp empanadas as appetizers, which were also really good.

And almost everyone at the table ordered the "pastel de choclo", the only true Chilean dish that I've ever attempted at home. It's a casserole dish (this is an individual serving) that has a hamburger/onion mixture, chicken, corn, olives and eggs, essentially. It's pretty good.

This is a traditional Chilean salad---tomatoes (they always skin their tomatoes) and onions (all the onions down there were much milder than the ones I'm used to in the U.S.) with lemon juice or oil for the dressing.

And this is the stuffed crab that Shad ordered. Notice the mayonnaise on top? Chileans like to put mayo on top of a lot of different things. Their mayo tastes a little different than ours too.

While we were eating, there was some free entertainment. We ended up buying one of his CDs for $2.00, so anytime you need a Chilean music fix, come on over.

Here's a video of him in case you're dying to hear... I'm not sure if he knew I was recording or if he just thought I was taking his picture.

I wish this picture were more in focus because I really like it. It shows a mother (or grandmother?) with her boy, trying to make money by selling stuff on the sidewalk. There were always people, in nearly every city we visited, that would just sit outside and try to earn money.

We visited the Chilean Congress in Valparaiso.

This was a cool car shop.

This was one of the toll booths we passed through on our way to our next destination. If you'll notice the guy just sitting there near the lower left of the picture, he was selling something (probably food). Another common occurrence.

It was about this point when we realized we were now on the second half of our trip. We missed our kids, but we were still having a good time. And we'd spent so much time with the Albornoz family, that it was going to be sad when we finally had to say goodbye to them. The first time we called "home" to my parents, the kids were already in bed. The second time we called home, my mom was trying every persuasion tool she could think of to get them to talk to us. I'm glad our kids were enjoying themselves enough that they practically forgot about their parents.

At least I didn't have to worry about them missing us!