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Published: January 21st 2007
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Warm up
The boys waiting for their cow to be let out... let the games begin! Our last day staying with Carmen and Sergio and their lovely family was bitter sweet. I loved staying with them; there was such a homey atmosphere and we were treated like princesses by everyone we met! They were so hospitable that we found it VERY difficult to leave.
As a ´typical´ Chilean activity Vincente (Carmen´s oldest son) took us to a rodeo. This wasn´t just ANY rodeo... this was a full out, poncho wearing, spur toting, cow harassing rodeo in the middle of ABSOLUTE nowhere! I felt like I was back in Telkwa! After driving about 2 hours out of Santiago we hit a dirt road, dodged massive boulders, and finally arrived at a rodeo grounds. Of course we were the ONLY white people there, let alone 2 of very few women, and definitely the tallest people there. Needless to say, we stuck out juuuust a little bit!
The competition itself was really interesting. I wont try and explain it all, but it involved 2 huasos (cowboys) on amazingly intellegent horses chasing around a poor frightened cow. The object of the game was to ´trap´ the cow on the railing - 2 points for the shoulders, 3 points for in the
Huasos Hangin´Out
Enjoying a small bit of shade, these pauncho-porting cowboys were awaiting their turn in the ring. middle, and 4 points for the hind legs. There were so many confusing rules that whenever the announcer yelled out ´2 Puntos Malos´ (2 bad points... aka, negative 2), we would just throw up our hands in confusion. Im sure it made sense somehow, but damn if I could find it!!
After we had finished watching the competition Vincente took us over to meet his huaso friend and we somehow ended up on top of 2 beautiful horses riding around a pasture and posing for pictures. Me, being the pushy tourist, asked if we could go faster. In a matter of minutes we found ourselves with 2 huaso guides cantering down a dirt road even further into the middle of nowhere! Our guides couldn´t have been more than 19, but they suuure thought they were the ´man´. All of the other cowboys were yelling hilarious compliments about ´offering´ to take their place to show the Gringas around or about how they could do a much better job, or if we would like to pose for some pictures. Needless to say, we had a great time and ending up galloping along for about 1/2 an hour - they even showed me
MAN DOWN!!!
A guy actually fell off his horse... it was funny only because he didn´t actually get hurt. But I kinda was cheering for the cow on this one! the blue ribbon my mount had won earlier in the day! These horses were SO incredibly smart and responded to the littlest body movement and ran like heck!!! We finally decided to head back and met a search party on the way... the people we were with thought that we had fallen off, and the cowboy´s dad was pissed-off because both the boy and the horse that I was on had to compete again, and they almost missed their start time! oops! he he.
What fun we had! Then the family had a great big Bar-B-Q party for us and we drank fabulous wine, ate massive chuncks of beef and played games until 2:30am. Lauren and I teamed up and finally after about 10 games we won one. I think it was rigged!!
The next morning we headed on the bus to Valparaiso, the beautiful hilly city on the coast of Chile where we spent the next few days climbing hundreds of stairs, and burning every part of Lauren´s body on the beach. (Ok, I have to admit, I did burn a little bit, but only on my bum where I changed bathing suits and the white tan line
Zero Punto
This was an unsuccessful trap. Don´t ask me what a successful one looked like because I think we only saw about 3 the whole day! turned into a charred RED line. Painful, I know!!!). We were told that in that part of Chile there is actually a hole in the ozone layer - something that would have been GREAT to know BEFORE we went out and layed in the sun for copious hours!!! Aside from the pain, it really was a fabulous few days, full of home cooking (our hostel had a great big fully equipped kitchen that we made GREAT use of), lots of exercise, and incredible seafood.
One day we headed up into the hills to explore around. After walking over 5km through the back streets of the city we ended up at one of Pablo Neruda´s house where we got to take a great tour and caught a few glimpses of an amazing poet´s lifestyle. His 3 wives sure were lucky! I have some great decorating ideas from there... now all I need is a 20foot high wall, some mortar and some rocks. It was actually incredible - a map of South America with the different coloured rocks showing the borders, the mountains, the lakes and the ocean.
Another day we took some buses to a far away beach called ConCon where
Chilean Flag and Boys on Horses
That´s about all there is to say about that. we rented some horses (now that we are pros!) to ´canter´ along the beach. Turns out we got the dud horses who refused to do more than a fast walk, and even at that I was kicking the crap out of his sides. What was supposed to be an hour ride turned into us returning the horses 15 minutes into it and just walking instead!
For all of you who love seafood, you MUST go to ConCon and Reñaca. They are stuffed full of hundreds of fabulous seafood restaurants that serve everything from fish and chips to eel, baked clams in a parmesan sauce, cream of mariscos (shellfish) soup and lovely fillets of fresh catch-of-the-day. We were in heaven!!!
What a great way to finish off our time in Chile! That night we hopped on a bus to the Argentinian city of Mendoza.
Aside from the extremely expensive prices and the completely modernized infrastructure and the shocking similarity to North America, and the at times VERY rude people, I really enjoyed Chile. I think when I´m older, have more time and more cash, I´ll head back to Chile and fully enjoy the Southern part! Any takers!?!?!
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