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Published: January 29th 2010
Off we go. Rita and I depart Santiago tonight for our grand trip south, east, and north. We are really looking forward to the adventures ahead but there has been so much to do this week to prepare. I will be sad to leave my new friends in Santiago. It is a city I have come to love and enjoy. There are so many areas of the city to discover and explore and my only hope is that I can come back later on to visit all the places that our new writers here in Santiago will review.
We finished our Spanish classes today and I will turn in my final paper for Negotiations tonight. Then its off to the south, to Pucon, a small town about 10 hrs by bus from Santiago. We got fancy bus tickets in the “cama” category which means our seats will basically halfway lay down. I am very excited to try this concept out. We didn’t quite splurge for the super nice ones.
So this week was busy, but I definitely enjoyed time out with my friends. Last Saturday I took a day trip to Cajon del Maipo, the mountains just outside of Santiago. We
drove for many hours up to these hot springs, Termas del Plomo. On the way up we stopped to enjoy the scenery many time, and we even stopped at a makeshift farm to enjoy some goat cheese. It was quite interesting the setup these guys had way up in the mountains. They also had two very large pigs, very large indeed.
At the hot springs we ate our lunch and then took off for a hike in the mountains. We hiked way up to this lake on the top of one of the mountains that happens to be in the shape of a duck. Its called the Lake of the Ducks in Spanish, funny. The scenery was absolutely beautiful and I took LOTS of pictures. They are on my picasa album if you want to see more.
After a LONG hike and the potential for a thunderstorm, I hadn’t heard thunder in a full month, we decided to take a quick dip in the hot springs which was cool, although the locals looked at me super funny with my blonde hair. Which one of these is not like the other…yeah. But it was really relaxing after a 4 hour hike.
When I came down from the hike, sunburned again - be careful down here, they aren’t joking, I showered real quick and headed over to my friends to eat dinner and then head out on the town. We went to a club called Blondie where apparently lots of famous DJs play. It had BOOMING music, yes very loud, so it was a bit much for me, but interesting to see all the big underground rooms and enjoy a little dancing.
Sunday we decided to splurge a bit so we went to a restaurant in Vitacura that a friend recommended called La Mar. It was really nice and we definitely enjoyed the Peruvianesque food. We tried lots of different types of ceviche and enjoyed some unique flavors of the restaurant (apparently there is one in San Francisco too). It was like having a good fun girls brunch again, and we definitely enjoyed that.
So anyways, sorry for the short blog, but we are attempting to get everything finished and out of town. We will have much more exciting adventures starting this weekend as we venture to a large countrywide Couchsurfing meetup. Reminds me of my days in Europe. Can’t wait to meet all the new people and camp out under the stars!
Just as a side note, I walked back to my apartment tonight for the last time with a full moon a sunset and a view of the mountains with the snow on top. Really picturesque. I will miss this place a lot.
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Vik
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The duck lake pic is beautiful
Heard about the mudslide at machu picchu so I thought of checking your blog to see if you were tavelling there at the same time. Glad to know the duck lake kept you away. Have a safe adventure.