Summer's over...

It's been almost a month since our last post, and a lot has happened over the last few weeks. We had a great finish to our summer - it was the Lessek family's turn to visit, and my dad and Lynda came down a couple of days after we got home from Panama.

Their arrival was slightly delayed because Lynda was detained (temporarily) by customs officials for sneaking an apple from the U.S. into Chile. The irony is that the apple, bought in the U.S., was actually imported from Chile in the first place. Hmmmm... Anyway, here she is with her "Welcome to Chile! Here is your fine!" documentation:

Before heading out on a road-trip, we spent a few days around Santiago. A hike in a nature sanctuary near our school:


My dad attempting to conduct some business from the hike, Claire mocking his efforts from behind his back:


Empanadas in the city center:


One of many exhibits from the Santiago Museum of Contemporary Art (this particular piece was a birthday party where all the attendees were dogs that were eating from plates of butter. Next door to this room was a similar set-up except with cats.):


From Santiago we went to Cajon de Maipo and stayed in a cabin at a place called Cascada de las Animas ("waterfall of the spirit"):


We were there for three days and two nights, and we spent the first day hiking in the canyon and visiting some thermal springs near an old mining camp:


(Wouldn't be Chile without some goats along the way...)




We went horseback ridin the next morning:



Me honing my chilean-rodeo skills:




After that we went rafting and then hiking to the nearby waterfalls:



From Cajon de Maipo we drove to winery named Casa Silva near the town of Santa Cruz (about a 150 km south of Santiago) and stayed for a couple of days:



From Casa Silva we took a day to drive to Zapallar, a coastal town north of Valparaiso. (My dad and Lynda deserve some credit here for sitting in the back of our little Suzuki for this whole trip!) Along the way we stopped in San Antonio for an empanada lunch:


Zapallar was incredibly pretty, with an ocean-walk that reminded us a little of Newport, RI. The hotel was on a hill that overlooks the water, and we spent our time in Zappallar on the beach, by the pool, and taking walks along the cliffs:





After a couple of days in Zappallar it was time to head back to Santiago. We stopped in a tiny town called Valle Hermoso, which had nothing but small storefronts selling handmade sweaters - of which there were probably 200, all in a row. Needless to say, Claire was pretty into it...


Our last stop was another vineyard. It's called Errazuriz (one of the largest in Chile), near San Fernando:



We were sad to see my parents leave, and we were almost as sad to have to report back to work the following week. Now we're back in full swing, already a couple of weeks into the second semester (which feels kind of strange - coming back from summer break to the same classes and students you had beforehand). We're both coaching this semester - Claire is doing girls' basketball and I'm doing boy's futbolito (a smaller-field version of soccer that they play during the off-season of 11 on 11). We're getting back to a normal routine, and picking up the way we left off in December (even the weather is the same - it hasn't rained since early November, and it's not likely to rain again until late April).

In the spirit of returning to the familiar, we'll leave this post with The Mullet of the Week. I can only assume from his t-shirt that this particular gentleman is touting the fact that he has been growing this mullet-strand for sixteen years, and so from this point on this style can be called The Dieciséis ("The Sixteen"). Here it is, in all its precisely-aged glory:

We miss everyone back home and hope that things are going well!