The kids…we encountered this family selling crafts on our way back from hiking around some waterfalls and while Jason was scooping up souvenirs for his fam I was snappin’ away and playing with these guys. Sadly, I realized after that I had neglected to change the camera back into auto focus mode, so, these precious shots are not my best (major bummer).

Anyway, ENJOY!

Last weekend, the activity was a horse-back riding up in the Andes. Now, unless it is REALLY critical, everyone who works at the school and all information at the school is in Spanish (you would be surprised what they do not consider critical, and also what these people can do with their hands). Anyway, what this comes down to is that Jason and I usually have an IDEA of what is going on, but not exactly the whole story. So, we knew if we wanted to go, we needed to meet at the school at 9 am. No problem, we were there.

We checked with a couple other people in the van to make sure everyone thought we were going horse-riding, and that’s what they thought too. When we arrived at the farm, our program director asked something about caballos, which I was able to recognize as, “does anyone know how to ride a horse?” There were about 15 of us. No hands went up. But, we were a little distracted by our surroundings: a couple house-sized shacks with a sheet spread from the roof of one to the roof of the other creating a shaded patio, a barn-sized shack with some horses, all saddled up, tied to the 4 posts and a strand of barb wire. 2 of the 4 posts were adorned with goat skulls. We really wanted to bring the fresher one back for Juany, but we were in no position to negotiate.

Jason tried to explain that he could make their horse farm rank first of all horse-farms listed, but they didn’t seem to have much use for this idea. That’s when the goats came back down from pasture (or wherever they were) about 40 of them, big ones, little ones, black ones, white ones–in such a hurry they got the sheep all fired up and almost trampled the chickens. They went straight for the bathtub that was next to the horse corral, where the hose was constantly running.

Ok, everything was on the up and up at this point and we were ready to ride. So, this guy who looked a lot like Juan Valdez started pointing at people and pointing at horses. I haven’t been on a horse since I was about 7, and lifetime horse riding experience is under 5 hours, so I was a little uneasy on top of this live animal. I felt a lot better after our program director explained with lots of hand motions: when climbing steeply, lean forward, when coming down, lean back. “Tú estas el jefe,” she said (you are the boss). Right, left, stop. VAMOS.

And we were off. We went slow and the horse was obviously very familiar with the trail. It was steep though, and I was for payin’ attention. A few times I tried to pet my horse and let him know he was doin’ a good job. I mean, I’ve seen Horse Whisperer.

Then a few other times I tried to remind myself to look around at the incredible view and stop thinking about what will happen if the horse 2 inches in front of my horse falls down.

Whenever we stopped, both Jason’s horse and my horse liked to lay down. “Honestly,” I told my horse, “look around buddy, you got the lightest load here, what are you whining about?” The guides were even less subtle, with their swift kick to the horse’s stomach. But, we made it. And now we can always say we rode through the Chilean Andes on horseback. We even had a decent encounter with a condor while we were stopped at one of the vistas. The mountains really were incredible, layers and layers of them. Craggaly ones with lots of snow, and rocky ones with trees around the next bend.

I was grateful and relieved when we made it back to the goats and the director warmed the empanadas on the grill for our lunch. Yeah, now this is the life…

We spent the first few days just walking around and trying to get a feel for the city. It’s somewhat European, but I hear that Buenos Aires is much more so, which we’ll see in December. So far, we’ve found the food and coffee both to vary greatly in quality and expectation. For the most part, it’s slightly less expensive than in the U.S., however, that is changing daily as the exchange rate between the US Dollar and the Chilean Peso continues to fluxuate wildly. However, the past three weeks have been VERY good for us as a traveler, yet not so good as an investor. The other single largest factor is the price of wine. CHEAP is all I can say. I’m currently enjoying a glass of red wine from the grocery store, which I paid less than $3 a bottle for. And it’s as good as anything I’ve drank in Portland. We also drank some wine that cost $2 for a 1.5 liter (that’s twice the size of a normal bottle of wine @ 750ml). It was great. The wine here is just so abundant that it’s dirt cheap. But that shouldn’t tell you it’s anything less than great.

On Saturday we are going on a Habitat for Humanity build in the small town of Casablanca about an hour from here. We’ll help do some work on a low income home in what I’ve read is a very poor town. It’ll be very good to take a break from the tourist lifestyle and do something, even in a small way, that gives back to the community that we’re visiting.

Here are a few photos from our first few days here. Hope you enjoy. And more will come soon.