La Laguna of Zapallar
Approximately 1.5 hours north of Viña by bus, a sleepy resort town that borders 5 other beach destinations. My friend Sarah invited me to celebrate the birthday of a Chilean friend she had introduced me to. I was more than happy to spend a couple days out exploring another city and have a really good chance to speak plenty of spanish. Also, I didn't have to worry about any of the planning and that was quite a relief : )
We left friday afternoon with way too much food and a cake the size of a small child, at least. Sarah's chilean parents had offered her their cabaña in Zapallar after we had found that the prices were a little high. This was incredibly kind of them and it meant all we had to worry about was food. That night we walked around the town a bit, realized that we were probably the only tourists in town (still early in the season) and started making pizzas! Sarah had brought all the ingredients and it was a lot of fun making the pizzas ... less fun figuring out the over situation. I haven't really written much about the use of gas appliances, including heating of water within houses but let's just say it takes some getting used to. Everything you have to light with a match once you've turned on the gas. This isn't really hard but our problem in the cabaña was that no gas was coming on, that we could tell therefore the matches weren't lighting the oven. Long story short ... we had cold pizza. Cold, uncooked pizza.
Well, we had cake also so not all was lost. Delicous home made cake with manjar ... Yum.
Please refer back to the "Irene is gaining weight due to this magical treat in Chile" entry for a manjar description
What I loved most about this area was the amount of flowers everywhere. I'm all for the kind of weeds that they have growing out of their front yards because they are beautiful. Of course not all of the flowers were weeds but there were wildflowers everywhere and it just felt like spring everywhere. Most of the houses were clearly summer getaways and there didn't seem to be many people in town but it really helped to just keep the weekend very relaxed. In viña going to the beach means searching for just the perfect spot between two chileans making out and a group of school kids still in their uniforms. Zapallar was very peaceful and after we checked out the beach, realized the wind was too much we went for a walk through the neighboring town and along the beach. There was a surprising amount of free land and I wonder how long it will be until places as serene as this place will be overcrowded with high rises and dominoes pizzas ... like Viña.
Hopefully the next time I'm back a plot is still available because I could have definitely just stayed!
A shot from the beach of La Laguna
The cute little cabaña that Sarah's parents let us stay in! Overrun with wildflowers and weeds, but perfect.
Viña del Mar ... my home for only a few weeks more. I decided to spend a slow sunday afternoon with my Chilean friend Rodrigo and we walked around to some of the sites that I hadn't seen yet. The second picture could quite possibly be the exact same picture of something I've sent you on a postcard, apparently they are proud of this clock made into a bed of flowers. Kind of more of a novelty than a city landmark ... but I suppose if Valparaíso has Pablo Neruda's house then Viña has to have something. Basically some beautiful views and a really nice day out in the sun. It's scares me just a little to think about the winter that I am headed towards, especially on such nice days.
The view from Cerro Castillo ... one of probably 100 hills within Viña and Valpo
This picture I am a little proud of because I stood in the street long enough for a breeze to come by and the flag to wave. It is the official residence of the President of Chile, for when she comes to Viña! So of course I had to get a bit of patriotism in the shot. Viva Chile!
Saturday night before Rodrigo's birthday party my friend Jess and I headed to Valpo to check out a neat cafe. What we found when we got there was a fire in the center or the city. We got out of our bus and immediately saw the smoke and realized that the fire couldn't be far. As we kept walking towards the cafe we could tell that we were walking in the direction of the fire. Luckily we weren't in the midst of much smoke but with sirens blaring we knew that it was pretty serious. Instead of finding the fire we knew it would be safer to get into the cafe where we would be out of the smoke. When we left the cafe nearly 2 hours later the fire was still going strong and we saw firefighters running across the streets with hoses, we crossed the street and realized the fire was literally one block away. There was still fire coming out of the windows and hoses in every direction. We didn't stay long to watch and I read the next day in the newspaper that it was a YMCA, which is really too bad and it was a really beautiful building as well.
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