chile:el.bolson.

unfortunately the trend of sleeping cold was carried over to argentina…but it helps us rise early! we had kind of a lazy morning just hanging out at the hostel, reading and journaling, etc. this is our little cabin:

i took a shower which was also not warm and then right when i got out augustin came over and showed us how to turn on the hot water. bad timing on my part. we decided to just walk around and explore el bolson for the day because tracy had some skype dates with colleagues to take care of. on our way out we met nina, a very very fat black dog who really enjoyed having her belly scratched. as soon as we started she just rolled over and was in heaven.

look at that happy face

we got a better look at our surroundings this morning, and we took a walk around augustin’s gardens some. he uses recycled bottles for barriers for his planters. cool idea.

we found out there was a craft fair going on in town so we walked in to check it out. this gorgeous view was on the way.

el bolson literally means “purse” or “bag” in spanish, and the town was given this name because it is surrounded by mountains on all sides, it is just a little bag hidden down inside.

the fair had lots of cool jewelry, wood carvings, hats and scarves, pottery, and food. we were starving because we didn’t have any food at the cabin for breakfast so we improvised. truckee settled on an empanada, i got french fries, and andy had a beer and a chocolate waffle. he was a happy camper.

we met back up with tracy and walked around town a bit. there were really cool art installations and sculptures everywhere. el bolson seems like an artsy, hippie little town, i really like it.

we went to a couple of health food stores to pick up some stuff for dinner. i had to buy ginger candies because my stomach does not like the back of tracy’s truck on bumpy gravel roads.

one thing we noticed at the craft fair was the abundance of troll figurines. then we saw this

so we had to go inside and ask about it. apparently the little trolls are called “duendes” and they live in the forests around el bolson. funny.

we saw this on the walk back home

i’ll definitely need to come back to el bolson, it is breathtaking!

we made some pasta for dinner and the sauce was supposedly just mushroom marinana but it was SO spicy. still delicious though. halfway through dinner we heard meowing outside and when we opened the door to see what was going on a little black cat just darted into our hut. we made a friend.

after dinner we tried this weird digestive bitters alcohol that is apparently what all the argentineans drink. it was mint flavored, it was bright green, and it was disgusting. tasted like mouthwash. no thanks.

we did dishes and decided to go to the brewery instead so truckee andy and i set off while tracy went to sleep. beer was much better than branca menta.

we made a kitty friend at the brewery too, it was tail-less and decided to sit on truckee’s lap all night even though she is the one person allergic to cats. we named him nubbers, and he was not pleased to be kicked out with us at the end of the night. on the walk back home we took our time and enjoyed the stars, they were so clear and bright—probably the most stars i’ve ever seen at once. so amazing.

chile:to.argentina.

surprise! we are in argentina. yesterday was filled with preparation for leaving, and today we drove all day and just got to our hostel after (almost) hours of searching for it. but first things first, yesterday:

we took care of all our chores early so we could catch a ride into town with tracy and help her in the store.

we had a blast rearranging the window display, she told us to just have fun with it and do whatever we wanted. truckee’s inner organizer/designer came out and i think we did a pretty good job.  we also did some pricing and unpacking new products, etc. at about 6 we walked over to ecole where they were screening a documentary about transition communities in the hopes that pucón would maybe want to pursue becoming one. basically a transition community is a town that aims to be entirely self-sustaining. they grow their own food, produce their own energy, and some of the ones in the video had their own currency like “e-cash” where everything was paid for by text message, or “time banks” which was cool because it was used in a community in new zealand that had recently suffered a hurricane and so people would pay with their time instead of money. they would dedicate say 15 minutes to helping rebuild a structure or cleaning up debris in exchange for food or clothing.

anyways after the video we ordered a big plate of nachos and settled in to listen to the big debate following the documentary. truckee and i were trying really hard to follow along but everyone’s spanish was so fast! we picked a good amount of it up, and at the end of the meeting there was a big group hug with everyone chanting “¡pucón in transición!”. it was pretty fun. after the meeting we picked up andy and all his stuff and headed back to the house to get ready for our early morning departure to argentina!

in the morning we did some last minute planting of our peas that decided to take forever to sprout, but then we gathered all of our stuff and snacks for the road and were off! the poor dogs were sad because they knew we were leaving them but they have some of tracy’s friends coming to visit them during the week so they’ll be fine. we picked up mateo the baker and his son Daniel at the bottom of the hill because they were catching a ride over the border, and they squished in the back with truckee and i. thank goodness they were only in the car for half the ride because it was a pretty tight squeeze.

it was so interesting seeing how quickly the terrain changed from chile to argentina, it was basically right at the border. the chile side was very lush and green and right when we got to argentina we were welcomed by snow on the ground and dry, desert-y terrain.

we were right at the foot of a volcano when we got out to go through customs

about an hour across the border we dropped mateo and daniel off at the bus station in junin. truckee and i used the bathroom there and found lots of graffiti and really strange toilets!

that is the tank which is up high on the wall and you pull a cord to flush.

we got some pizza for lunch which was delicious, despite the weird trend that they want to put big green olives on every single pizza, pit and all. after lunch we kept on with the rest of our drive, with stops along the way for photo ops. the sunset in patagonia was one of the most beautiful things i’ve ever seen.

we finally arrived in el bolson, but like i said earlier it took us quite a while to find our hostel because it was really dark and the little bungalows were hidden behind a huge fence and a very lush garden. we have a cute little hut though with a kitchen and everything! tracy has a bedroom to herself downstairs, truckee and i have a little attic loft on one side and andy has a little attic loft on the other side. the owner's name is augustin and he is super nice. he lives in a house next door and grows lots of food on the land around us. he brought us some of his homemade jam before bed and read us our chinese horoscopes? he said truckee and i are water monkeys and andy is a land snake. andy thought that was pretty cool until augustin just translated it into WORM. so funny.

chile:sunshine.and.blue.skies.

today was so beautiful! the sun was shining all day which is a first because it has rained at least a little bit every day since we’ve arrived. it was also ideal because we had lots of outdoor work to do today…we get to go to argentina in two days! so we worked hard to get everything ready for us to leave. we planted our newly sprouted peas

and planted the rest of the seedling boxes with tomatoes, squash, basil, and cayenne pepper.

tracy went into town and we had a fun afternoon of not really doing anything. first we changed into shorts, t-shirts, and baseball caps because it was sunny and we could!

then we hiked up the road so we could take a picture of villarrica since we could actually see it for once.

then we got to take a bath on the deck. this was both of our favorite parts of being on the mountain so far. tracy has a cool bathtub that is sunken into her second story deck with breathtaking views all around, and we got to play in it!

chile:lazy.sunday.

lucky for us, we did end up getting a break after the long day of moving. it was grey and rainy all day and we got to spend most of it in the warm greenhouse building trellises for peas to climb up and planting nasturtiums and spinach. andy designed the other side of the greenhouse with a wave pattern, and tracy let us do whatever we wanted on our side so we ended up with a sun kind of thing going on, with circles around all the stepping stones and rays coming off the circles.  then we went inside and tracy made us dinner! she said she was struck by inspiration on the drive home and we ended up with a finished product of lavender, basil, squash, carrot, potato, onion, garlic, white wine soup.

those fresh herbs were divine. we had both never cooked with lavender before, and it is definitely something that i’m going to want to try again.

chile:full.house.

this morning started off nice and quiet with some tea i found in the cabin called “jose”.

 i’m not really sure what it was since the name didn’t give much away and one of the ingredients was melissa (?) but it was delicious! we went to the house and got started on some “light” reading tracy wanted us to get done. sam helped.

it was fun though because we were trying to decide what to plant for the spring. we definitely learned a lot about what grows well at different temperatures, shade levels, near other plants, etc. etc. then i had to play detective and find out what gross disease/pest was plaguing the lemon tree.

tracy took lance to the airport today so she was out of the house, but truckee and i were not lonely because we had the housekeeper alicia and a little 13 year old named damien who chops wood on saturdays keeping us company. well actually they shooed us out of the house so they could get their work done so we just did some work in the greenhouses and yard down below. we made some compost tea which is the compost mixed with water and we have to spray it on all the plants in the greenhouses everyday, it acts as a bug repellant. pretty cool.

later, the bed that tracy had ordered on our trip to temuco came and that was an ordeal. we were moving furniture all over the place: up the stairs, down the stairs around and around and then tracy came home and we went into full on redecorating mode. it was kind of chaotic because alicia doesn’t speak any english and we can’t understand her spanish because she talks so fast so there was a lot of confused looks on our part and exasperated sighs on hers.

all that moving made us ravenously hungry, but thankfully we had started our dinner of roasted rosemary potatoes and beet salad before tracy came back so it was ready to go. we were informed that while we were working outside, alicia had found a huge rat in its nest in one of the cupboards and she just killed it with a board! fearless lady.

what a crazy day, we are both hoping tomorrow will be a bit less hectic. i think the dogs feel the same way, with lance leaving and all the furniture different they are a bit overwhelmed. poor pups!

chile:around.the.farm.

we are starting to settle into our routine here, and here are some shots of what we’ve been seeing every day!

we took the dogs on a walk early this morning because tracy and lance slept late and we didn’t have a chore list. we decided to have a photoshoot and flaunt our new “mountain chic” look. essentials include puffy vests, fuzzy headbands, and big clunky boots!

we stumbled upon a cool abandoned house up the road. we were trying to figure out what happened to it, as the entire roof was laying on the ground about 50 yards away. weird.

as usual on walks, we were joined by some of the neighbor dogs. this funny little guy is named lippy

after we came back, tracy had gotten up and she taught us how to plant seedling boxes real quick before we caught a ride with her into town. we planted arugula, broccoli, lettuce, and then put some peas in a container with wet paper towels to help them sprout!

the afternoon in pucon consisted of bugging andy at ecole, finding my sweatpants that i had left there the week before (yay!), pizza, this heavenly ice cream sundae

and a pow-wow about the possibility of taking a little side trip to argentina! tracy wants to go since lance will be leaving for the states soon and she just wants to take a little trip. lucky for us, truckee andy and i would get to tag along. fingers crossed!