the traveling stoneleys: Arriving in the Lake District

It feels like we left Santiago ages ago! I have gotten way behind on the blog again so the next few installments will hopefully catch us up.

Two weeks back we said our good byes to Beth and to Lilian (the woman from whom we had rented our apartment and was very sweet with our kids.) It was bittersweet packing up- we were finished with our time there for sure and excited to move on, but leaving Santiago we knew we were leaving the home base we had established for the last 6 weeks. (It was also sad for the kids to say goodbye to a couple toys, especially the duplo legos.)

We flew south into the lake district of Chile and as we landed we were met with the most stunning view of volcanoes. The lake district is located in south-central Chile, an area of heavily wooded old-growth forests, blue clear glacial lakes, snow-topped volcanoes, and rolling mountains. This area contains seven of Chile's national parks and many hot springs, lakeside beaches and bumpy dusty roads to explore.

Beverly and Glen at their hosteria

We stayed for a week just outside the town of Villarrica, at a sweet little inn run by an older couple from the states. It was like walking into our psyeudo-grandparents’ home. The greeted us with wooden toys for the kids, a plate of venison summer sausage, and a stack of seven hand-drawn maps of the area. Beverly and Glen keep a stunning garden with a nice big grassy yard. They have a wood burning hot tub and they make homemade ice cream. Cal and Harper played lots of soccer, held many a running race, and spent lots of time just rolling, summersaulting and, in Cal’s case, falling down their gentle hill.

Happy days

View from our room

Our table for meals at the hosteria

Grass!

View of the gardens at Beverly and Glen's and Villarrica Volcano in the background

The following photos are from one afternoon last week when Beverly took us into the town of Villarrica to show us around. We just happened to be there for the county fair. There were animals to see (one horse that took a bite out of Danny's arm!) booths to browse (Harper and I invested in another wool hat) and some serious Chilean food for lunch. I had my favorite- Pastel de Choclo, Harper had a couple pino empanadas, and Danny and Cal devoured a big cut of grilled local lamb. Besides the biting incident it was a great time.

Lago Villarrica- Pre strip down

Afterwards we headed to the lake and went for an impromptu swim. Harper has become a little modest but we persuaded her to strip down to her undies like Cal and enjoy the water. They had a lot of fun and the water was warmer than we expected. The Villarrica Volcano came out from behind the clouds today and we got a couple good photos with my phone (my SLR camera has been out of commission for a while now.)