The gorgeous, green, cloudy, rainy south of Chile
This is an example of the infamous pine tree plantation which is now taking over the south, sucking all of the underground aquifers dry, and since its a monoculture(meaning they ONLY grow "mono-"=one crop) they douse the land with pesticides and fertilizers which are contaminating the air, water and soil. (Sorry about the weird glare, I took the pic through the bus window)
We visited an elderly mapuche woman who runs a sort of tourist/cultural exchange/restaurant deal where she invites people into her home, serves them a feast of traditional foods and then has a dialogue about Mapuche culture, history and current lifestyles. She was basically a kickass entrepreneur and in exchange for her family singing us a song, we sang "This Land is Your Land". Yes, I was in the back cringing.(BTW don't mind my friend, Michelle, who's giving the death stare. She was actually very happy)
My favorite dish: includes hominy, barley, squash and a million proteiny delicious legumes.
How to dye yarn the ultra-natural way: in boiling onion skins!
We also had the opportunity to visit a rural K-8 school where 100% of the students are Mapuche, and they'll soon be starting a bilingual program(Spanish and Mapundungun) that the government funds. I've never been to a rural school before and it was pretty shocking-the principal said until a few years ago everyone walked about 5km to get to school and their "playground" was a bunch of tires half buried in the dirt. On the other hand, when we arrived they were doing a salsa workshop....(the type of dance kind, not the tomato kind)
So among our many activities in Pucon, a cute ski village-looking town known for its adventure sports, we went horseback riding! Here's my glorious horse. When I asked one of the guides her name, he paused for a long time, and then told me, "well she's my friend's horse, but we can call her 'castaña' aka 'chestnut'". Fome. I mostly called her "mi amor" as I tried to coax her ahead of the group.
Our "guide"(I'm using this word in the loosest sense possible b/c he was mostly the owner of hte horses who grudgingly went with us and would sometimes shout out incomprehensible commands like "para! al a derhsaosdlsaflk izlkajsldf ahora! NO! El otro direccion!" etc.) told us our ride would end at "the most beautiful waterfall in Pucon" but since everyone likes to brag in Chile, I didn't really pay him any attention, until he ordered us off our horses and then we started a 40 minute hike, in the rain, down a muddy mountain and found ourselves a) in a rain forest and b) at the base of this staggering waterfall.
OK this waterfall was SO powerful, the spray reached all the way to us-we were this soaked and never got closer than ten feet to the falls!
So after all those wet, rainy adventures, it was delightful to come back to our adorable cabins and curl up with hot chocolate and good friends. All in all there were 6 of us in our cabin, and my friend Kelsey and I noticed that we had a wood-burning stove and wanted to make a fire(for warmth, but also s'mores-making).
THIS FIRE TOOK TWO HOURS TO START....this is step 1.(all I can say about step 2 is that it involved rum-doused napkins...)
Since we are stereotypical "city girls" we found it both absurdly exciting and necessary to go foraging for kindling in the "forest" around our cabin.
Here Kelsey and I show off one of our best finds.
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