Adventures in Plate Tectonics

From San Pedro de Atacama, I made my way to Santiago to meet my lovely mother. More or less immediately upon our arrival, in true Peltz-family fashion, we passed on the opportunity to relax and instead jumped right on a hop-on-hop-off bus tour. Although Leigh fell asleep for the better part of the tour, it was a great way to get oriented and to see some of the city.

The next day, we did a day trip to Valparaiso and Vina del Mar, small coastal cities about an hour outside of Santiago. I really liked Valparaiso because the houses are all painted different, vibrant colours and the city is built into a hillside. However, we were there on the day of the Chilean presidential elections, so a lot of stuff was closed. Vina del Mar was nice for walking by the water, but it did remind me a bit too much of Miami.

The next day, we flew to Pucon, which is in Chile's Lake District. The area was incredibly beautiful, with volcanos and mountains forming a striking backdrop for the lakes. Our hotel is really special because of the amazing gardens around it. It's built into a hillside and there are winding paths down to the lake and through the gardens, where they grow vegetables that are served in the hotel restaurant. It was an incredible spot, definitely one of my favourites so far.

On our first day in Pucon, we decided to do a hike in Huerquehue National Park. It turned out to be a fairly challenging, three hour walk up a mountain, but the three pristine lakes at the end were definitely worth the effort. The water was clear and green and each lake was surrounded by rocky cliffs and gigantic trees.

The next day, I ditched mom to climb up Volcan Villarrica. When I say "climb", I do mean climb...ice-picks were involved. The hike was about four hours one way, through the snow, until we reached the crater. The crater was incredible, massive and smoking and bubbling. Instead of walking back down, the thing to do is to slide on your butt. This was a lot of fun until I lost control on a steep part of the volcano. I ended up tumbling down part of the mountain, all the while thinking, "would it be worse to hit a rock or to impale myself on my ice-pick?", until two men on my tour managed to form a sort of human shield to stop me. A bit of an adventure, but definitely a lot of fun.

For our last day in Pucon, we decided to do something a bit more low-key and so went horseback riding in the mountains. We had a fantastic guide named Rodolfo, an authentic Chilean gaucho, who runs a riding school in the area. He took us to his farm where we had breakfast and met his family and then he took us riding around the area. The scenery was stunning and peaceful and we had a really great time. After the ride, we spent the rest of the day relaxing at our hotel.

The next day, we flew back to Santiago. We spent the following day walking around the city before mom had to go back home, which was very sad because we had had such a great time together. The next day, I checked out of our real-person hotel and moved to a dirty-traveler-person hostel, which is much more my style right now. I have the next few days to explore more of Santiago, before I make "the great schlep" to Mexico to be with the family.

Hasta luego!

Sarah