Chile - Parent Visit

By Brent

In mid-February, my parents came down to visit us during our travels. For them, it was a nice chance to see South America and get away from the below-freezing temperatures they've been dealing

with for the last several months. For us, it was a chance to see someone from home for the first time since Christmas.

They came to visit us while we were in Puerto Montt in south-central Chile. It's a small town on the coast (as if there's anywhere else Chilean cities could be) near the island of Chiloe. They arrived late in the day, so Dana and I had to get lunch at a grocery store.

Since there weren't small containers of ice cream and we didn't have a freezer, we were forced to eat half a liter each. Obviously, we had to eat that first so it didn't melt while we were eating the rest of our lunch.

Eventually my parents got there and we went up to the hotel room. The view was alright.

We were put on the 11th (top) floor of the hotel with floor-to-ceiling windows.

It happened to be the 161st anniversary of the city's founding, which as everyone knows, requires a massive celebration including fireworks, concerts every night for a week, and a parade. Also a large boat sculpture showing how old the city is.

My parents' first experience with South American artisan markets.

Anniversary parade.

In small-town South America, you don't get fighter jets in your parades. You get prop planes. And they pass very high above your city.

There was also an awesome wooden church that was built in the 1800's and somehow hasn't burned down yet. Everything was made from a local tree that is very valuable, including the columns in front of the building. Unfortunately it was locked, so we couldn't go in.

This is where we had lunch.

The grapes weren't very good.

I'm kidding of course. They were delicious. I have no idea why my mom is holding them like this.

At Tracy's house (see Siempre Verde), we ran into people who impulse-bought a dog in Peru. We bought a boat!

It's kind of a fixer-upper, but if we can get it going, that's how we're getting home!

Then we went to a fantastic seafood place that served everything you can think of from the ocean. I had a delicious meal of fish, mussels, calamari, and other unfortunate ocean-dwellers who were now swimming in a wonderful butter sauce.

Dana had a pan-fried salmon fliet surrounded by melted butter, herbs, and calamari. Then she proceeded to do the stereotypical obnoxious teenager thing and take pictures of everyone's food before we could eat.

I don't know what my parents ate, but I'm sure it was fantastic. If anyone reading this ever goes to Puerto Montt and is willing to spend a little money to have a huge plate of delicious seafood, I would highly recommend finding Pa'Mar Adentro.

On the way back to the hotel, we bought a small bottle of liquor made from old milk!

I'm actually quite serious about them using milk for this. There's also a lot of other random stuff in it, like cinnamon, sugar, cloves, saffron, lemons, almonds, and vanilla.

I mentioned there were fireworks celebrating the city's 161st anniversary. Turns out they're pretty cool from the 11th floor!

Unfortunately, the show ended early when one of the barges full of explosives shot one into the water a little too close. For the full story, see the newspaper articles here: Disastre de Fuegos Artificiales en Puerto Montt. No one was hurt, but the barge wasn't so lucky. Thank goodness they were shooting them off in the middle of the bay.

The next day, I took my parents hitchhiking! We were even successful! We got to a pretty cool little park where you had to walk in a ways to get to a big waterfall.

While we waited for cars to go by, we killed time by doing this.

Then we walked across a series of bridges and trails to get to a beautiful cliff face.

And this:

You can't tell, but that is us in the picture.

After wandering back into town, we decided to head down to the beach to blind the locals.

This statue is apparently quite well-known, if only because it's the first publicly-funded, south-facing, hideous sculpture of two people who clearly do not enjoy each other's company and chose to sit in a very awkward position in South America. What better way to celebrate Valentine's Day than by taking advantage of the opportunity to do a Mike and Christina photo?

We took a side trip to the coastal town of Valdivia which just happens to be the brewing captial of Chile. Totally a coincidence...

This is the hotel room where we woke up on February 14th (happy birthday, Lisa):

Apparently, the hotel had rules against having four adults in one room - it had to be two adults and two kids, so they made us move to this room while my parents stayed in the other one. Both rooms were on the same floor with essentially the same view.

This is where we spent the night of February 14th:

Happy Valentine's Day! Pretty romantic, huh?

Valentine's Day dinner!

In Chile, raw octopus is (strangely) considered a delicacy. It's super chewy - you thought it was bad cooked - and if you're not careful when preparing it, you end up biting down on the ink bladder and staining your shirt.

Not really, no one eats raw octopus. That's gross. We didn't even eat this cooked.

After visiting the market, we walked to a large botanic garden. At this clearing, there was another one of the benches that was missing the part where you sit, so I was forced to improvise.

All that walking made us thirsty, so we had to stop at this place. They had a special where the pitchers were cheap, so we had to get two.

For dinner, we went into a random, somewhat sketchy-looking place, where we successfully avoided food poisoning (but definitely not over-eating), and enjoyed fantastic Chilean food. I have no idea what Dana is holding, but apparently she likes it.

We did a fair amount of walking while my parents were here, and it turns out, no one else in all of Chile seems interested in eating blackberries. We did our best to make up for them on our 4-5km walk to Cerveceria Kunstmann.

At Chile's largest craft brewery. Tourists are so embarrassing...

Had to get a pair of samplers. My mom and I really liked a traditional German lager. Dana and my dad both preferred the hefeweizen.

A quick 3km hike to the next brewery, and we were sampling the best Valtor had to offer.

And another 1.5km brought us to El Duende (The Dwarf) for our third brewery of the day.

The following day we went to the coast to enjoy the beach for a while. Obviously, we had to make sure my parents tried empanadas de horno (baked empanadas instead of fried).

We walked out here to sit down, eat a little, and kill time before we met a friend at Cerveceria Kunstmann. We're in the city of Niebla at this point, very aptly named ("niebla" means "fog" in Spanish).

Some of us may have fallen asleep.

We got up and headed to the area's smaller beach, which involved a bit of rock-climbing.

Then we had to sample Cuello Negro beer. Very good dark beer, and the pale ale was actually pretty good too (most down here aren't even hoppy enough to qualify as English-style pale ales, but this one was great).

We found Mac while he was working in Valdivia, so we invited him out to dinner with us at Cerveceria Kunstmann. They have pretty stinking good food to go with their delicious beer.

I don't actually know what this is, but it has avocado, so it must've been good.

Thanks for picking up the bill on this, Mom and Dad! We hope you enjoyed the beer tour of Chile!

The next morning, we went back to Puerto Montt so my parents could catch their flight home and we could get our food and equipment together for our trip to Torres del Paine!

Also, the fireworks barge didn't blow up. If you really thought it had, I would recommend that you don't admit that to anyone.

Chile - A Little Slice of Heaven

By Dana

After spending a few weeks near Pucon, we headed just to the other side of beautiful Volcan Villarica to stay with Kika and Xavier, two of the most genuine and generous people we have ever met.  The moment we arrived, they welcomed us into their home and shared everything with us, including their time, energy, and amazing - and I mean amazing - food.  

They made it very clear to us from the first moment that WWOOFing for them is an 'intercambio' or an exchange, where you give and receive.  It was such a refreshing change of pace from some of the other WWOOFing experiences we have had where we've felt like servants in someone's home.  They understood the importance of hard work combined with relaxation, and I look forward to getting to hopefully come back someday to see their dream home(s) become a reality.  

The Family

Kika is an extremely hard-working, well-educated, and strong-willed woman.  She lived in France for many years with her husband and 2 sons before recently moving back to Chile with her husband Xavier.  

Xavier is from France and first 'met' Kika when their teachers set them up to be pen pals in high school.  After years of writing back and forth he traveled to Chile to actually meet her for the first time (with a very limited Spanish vocabulary).  Later they got married and moved to France, and the rest is history.  :)  

The next family member is Piu Piu (his name is the Spanish equivalent to the sound 'cheep cheep' in English).  Piu Piu had his leg crushed as a chick and therefore had to be raised apart from the bullies in the chicken coup.  He has since become part of the family.  His poor leg makes him quite wobbly, making him hilarious to watch walk, and he often topples over as you see above.  Xavier absolutely adores him and will often bring him to the dinner table where Piu Piu usually falls asleep in his arms.  

This is their puppy Gaspar.  I think I still have muddy paw prints on every shirt and pair of pants from his playful jumping.  :)

Lastly are the 10 sheep that Gaspar loved to chase around.  Every once in awhile he wouldn't be paying attention and would get butted by one of them.  I can't say he didn't deserve it.  :)

The 3 geese

The chickens which laid yummy eggs!

And the 2 ducks

Their Home

Kika and Xavier have more projects going on than I can believe.  They are finally putting the finishing touches on their beautiful home made out of adobe and wood, they are building a brand new kitchen to add onto their house, they are getting the upstairs of their house ready to accomodate guests, and they are building a separate beautiful hostel up the hill that has an amazing view.  

In addition, they have an enormous garden, tons of fruit trees, are putting in a solar shower, are working on installing composting toilets, and are constantly cutting wood to fill their wood burning stove that they use for almost all their cooking.  With all this going on, they are constantly going nonstop.  

Their home

The new kitchen they will soon be adding onto their house

The beautiful hostel they're building up the hill with a spectacular view over the valley

The view from their hostel location

The chicken coup with words painted on it that say, "Nothing occurs in nature that is not connected to the whole."

Awesome outdoor sink carved out of an old tree trunk they found.  Their kitchen sink is similar.  

Their water filtration system.  Since plants filter the water that comes from their house, they only use homemade  soap.  

The Food!

One of the most amazing parts of our experience here was the food.  Kika and Xavier not only happen to both be chefs, but they lived in France for many, many years, so they know good food.  They are also very focused on permaculture, so not only do they make sure nothing goes to waste, but the majority of the produce we ate came straight from their garden.  The combinations of flavors and variety they were able to create everyday was absolutely amazing.  Every meal was a feast.  

As the neighbor's cow grazed on their land, everyday Kika and Xavier received 1.5 liters of fresh milk as payment.

They used the milk for making cheese, homeade yogurt, and even sweet treats like homemade Manjar.  Manjar is a delicious, traditional Chilean sweet made from milk and sugar, which is cooked down to a carmel consistency, as you see me working on above.  Kika added orange peel and cinnamon to hers, which was heavenly.  

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We also had fresh honey harvested from their bees

Delicious and beautiful salads from their garden

Unlimited fruit from their trees and bushes

Some of the fruit included: apples, cherries, nectarines, and more plums than I could eat.  I may have had to limit myself to 10 plums per meal. . . no joke.  :) (and she sometimes was unsuccessful with that - ed.)

And of course wild blackberries!  We made these into toppings for bread and yogurt as well as a big blackberry crisp.  

We also got to enjoy some amazing, homeade, traditional Chilean dishes such as Humitas and Empanadas.  

Humitas are similar to Mexican tamales.  They are made by cutting all the corn off the cob and setting aside the husks.  

Next the corn is blended with milk and a few spices of your choosing.  Kika used fresh herbs from the garden.  

Next the corn mixture is placed back in the corn husks and carefully wrapped up into little packages so they don't leak. 

Next they're dropped into boiling water and cooked until the corn is done.  They can be eaten with either sugar or a bit of salt and are delicious!

Empanadas are made by filling dough with either meat, cheese, seafood, or a combination.  These empanadas happened to be made with wheat flour and filled with homeade cheese made right there on their farm.  

Then they are either baked or fried.  

These empanadas were extra special as they were made to celebrate my birthday.  Thanks for the great birthday present Kika and Xavier!

We also had an amazing outdoor good-bye picnic on our last day.  

We had delicious, marinated pork chops cooked over a fire

Chilean wine, homeade pebre (salsa), and some of our favorite salads

We'll never forget the amazing meals and even more amazing conversation we had during them.  

Work

As we were there after all to work and help them out, I suppose I should highlight some of our typical jobs.  First I have to say that Kika and Xavier are hands down two of the hardest workers we have encountered in Chile during our travels.  They sleep very little, work all day, and yet somehow still make the time for friends.  It was a good reminder to always take time for what is important in life.  They clearly believe in the imporance of a good sit down meal and most importantly good conversation with friends.  

When we weren't eating, Brent and I spent most of our time up on the second floor of the house in the dark "slinging poop on the walls."  

We're actually not kidding.  Their home is an earthen house built with a mix of mud, sand, clay and horse manure (don't worry it wasn't Dana-manure).  Man oh man did it smell nice!

We spent days redoing all the outlets upstairs.  The electrician had installed them deep into the wall, so we had to cut away the dried dirt around each one. . .

. . . often having to cut away chunks of wood that actually covered up the electrical box . . . 

. . . patching it with more mud, while making sure the cover would still fit. . .

. . . and then applying the final, smoothing coat of mud . . . which was then smoothed out with a plastic sheet or bag to match the rest of the wall.  

When we weren't working on outlets, we were. . . 

Hauling and chopping wood for the wood cook stove in their kitchen

Working on other woodworking projects such as finishing the doors for all the bedrooms

Feeding the animals - I thought it was super cute that Gaspar and Piu Piu ate together.  In fact, if the chicken wasn't given a bowl of food, he would usually go over and steal dog food from Gaspar.  

Working on food or cleaning up in the kitchen

Or working in the greenhouse or one of their two huge gardens

We spent hours taming the 'selva' (jungle) as Kika called it, pulling some weeds, and rigging the plants on sticks so they started growing up more rather than out

Brent set up some fancy stakes for the tomato plants while I pruned them

Of course it was all very serious work.  

Play

When we weren't working, we enjoyed some quality time exploring the area.  

One day we went on a hike with Kika behind their house to check out the trails and the water sources on their property.  

Picking wild blackberries - they were everywhere!