Thursday and Friday the 10th and 11th, Concepcion, Temuco, Renaico farm and back to Concepcion

I have decided that it is easier to write detailed captions than try to remember everything we want to share. Anyways don't they say a picture is worth a thousand words? We arrived back in Concepcion(around 5 pm) after our two day adventure. We dropped Grandma and Barb off at Joan's house and then headed to Patrick's where Jay was busily helping Christopher (Patrick's son) build signboards for his new business selling smoothies to drop off Pegg and Patrick. Dan and I came up the hill to Beverly and Antonio's house. We relaxed on the deck and told tales of our adventures. Their daughter Andrea arrived around 7 to wait for her sister Carolina to arrive from Santiago. Carolina is coming home for the election this Sunday. Her plane was due in at 9pm and she should be here any moment. We are having a late supper and then early (??) to bed.--- Mañana The Blisses
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~~~_/)~~~D&M

Thursday morning we (sans Jay - - St. Augustine port commission worries) headed with Patrick to Temuco (about 3 1/2 hours south of Concepcion) to see Joan's youngest child, Jackie. We crossed the Rio BioBio, (for the first time) lower right, and drove along it (upper left) for quite a while. We passed the tallest railroad bridge in Chile, which crosses the Malleco River (upper right) and saw lots and lots of crops growing all along the way. Everything seems very modern until you pass a horse (or oxen) drawn cart!

Just be thankful that you are only looking at 7 pictures of the Llaima Volcano (pronounced YEI-ma, for those of you, like me, who don't really know the Spanish alphabet.) We kept catching glimpses of it for a couple of hours and between the three camera women there had to be 70-80 shots trying to capture it! The picture on the upper right is from the original visit to Chile and shows how skiers and guests got to the lodge at the top. We were glad to be enjoying it's snow covered slopes from the car with a temperature of 70 or so.

The main purpose of our trip to Temuco was to see Patrick's sister, Jackie who has a wonderful little cake shop which they built right on to their house. She specializes in paper thin cakes (15-20 layers each with a variety of fillings) She also makes a VERY thin wafer cookie that got its start from Tia Peddie's sugar cookies!! We enjoyed a lovely lunch with Jackie and her daughters, Magdalena and Maria Paz, and were joined by her husband Diego and son Felipe for dessert. The girls spent the afternoon shopping while Dan and Patrick went to the market to get food for our trip to Patrick's fundo, or farm. We left Jackie's about 5:30pm and headed to Renaico, about half the way back north toward Concepcion.

We arrived at the farm aroung 7:45 PM after a very long bumpy ride down a dirt road that takes you to the farm that has come down through Rose's family. It is not the farm that everyone remembers from the 50's. It is quite large and they have all sorts of interests going. Cattle, sheep, walnuts, honey, (a turkey,) some produce, beautiful flowers and several horses. Patrick picked some lettuce from the garden and we quickly prepared supper so we could enjoy eating it outside under the grape arbor. (Click here to see the farm in Google Maps. -Sam)

I hope this is a video of Grandma's feelings about the trip! If not it's just a cute picture of her at the dinner table under the grape arbor on the farm.

While Martha was enjoying her birthday breakfast, Patrick was negotiating with one of the caretakers to get some supplies and the other caretaker was slaughtering a lamb to take to a friend in Concepcion. The dogs had a field day eating the scraps and cleaning off the pelt. I wasn't sorry that I missed all that activity!

After breakfast Dan helped Patrick assemble some new bee boxes. First they would insert a thin piece of beeswax that was imprinted with the honeycomb pattern and then patrick would run electric current through the wires in the wooden frame they used to melt the wax enough to keep it in place. They then placed nine frames in each box. He said that with all the spring flowers, the bees would fill the frames in two to three weeks. They got 1.5 tons of honey last year.

After setting out the new bee boxes, Patrick asked who wanted to go for a ride. Pegg and Grandma declined, but Barb, Dan and Martha were game. Unfortunately something scared Dan's horse as soon as we went through the gate to head off and she took off, leaving Dan in the dust! Patrick brought her back, but Dan was no longer keen to go for a ride!!

Patrick, Barb and Martha headed off over the hills for a short ride. We rode through a carpet of wildflowers that were just gorgeous, with wild rose bushes popping up everywhere. The view from the top was spectacular. The house hidden behind the center clump of trees. We rode over the hill and down to a small pond created by a dam built by Rose's grandfather.

The caretaker returned with the supplies in a cart and Pegg thought that a cart ride would be the way she'd like to travel, so Patrick asked him to take the "girls" to the river (the Rio Renaico.) Off we went, over the canal that supplies water for several surrounding fundos. The canal runs through his land, but he doesn't have water rights so has to use the pond on the other side of his property to supply most of his water! We took a treacherous (according to Pegg) ride down a rutted path to get to the river. It was running fast and full, but not too cold to stick our feet in. The horse pulling us was 22 and pregnant, we asked how long she would continue to "work" and the driver told us at 4 months she would get too fat to fit into the harness and would have a "rest".

Wednesday, Dec. 9th

Long day!  It is not 1 AM and I just finished doing the pictures for today.  It gets harder and harder with three cameras snapping every day.  After very ruthless deleting there are still 74 pictures from today!!  Obviously you didn't get them all.  We left Tia Peddie relaxing with Joan while Patrick took the five us, plus his son Christopher off on a jaunt.  Hopefully the pictures and captions will tell the story because I am running out of steam.  We are all overwhelmed with the kindness and immediate friendship we have found with all the Clemo family.  Tia Peddie is definitely the "cement" that kept us connected over the years to Joan and her family,  but all generations have embraced us and welcomed us like long lost cousins.   Tomorrow we are driving to Temuco where Jackie, Joan's youngest daughter lives and runs a bake shop.  Obviously we will be eating well AGAIN!  I don't know if we will have internet as we will be spending the night at Patrick and Rose's farm, so Hasta la vista for now.  The Blisses

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~~~_/)~~~D&M

The first stop on our adventures today was at 691 Pedro de Valdivia, the Bliss house in 1955.

The second stop was an open air market where Christopher (center picture) needed to pick up fresh fruit for his "smoothie" cart. He takes the cart to the beach area at Lenga, near Talchauano on weekends. We went there to see the area and have lunch.

Third stop was the fishing pier where we saw lots of fish and shellfish most of which we could not identify!! Some that we could, we were surprised to see considered as food. Barnacle anyone?? (they were HUGE). Jay bought some "loco" which is related to abalone, but we learned that "loco" is carnivorous while abalone eats seaweed! We watched two sea lions cruising for handouts near the dock.

We also drove by "CAP", the steel mill that Grandpa John helped start up 60 years ago. It is still going strong.

When Tia Peddie first arrived at Joan Clemo's house she was met by Maureen, Joan's daughter. Tia Peddie exclaimed, "Why Joan, you haven't changed a bit!" It's easy to see how she had become confused, Maureen is the spitting image of her mother!

Dinner the first night (and tonight also) was hosted by Patrick and Rose with help from their son, David and his girlfriend Melanie.

The day ended with another dinner at Patrick's, with everyone contributing something. This time Patrick and Rose's youngest, Pauline and her boyfriend Willy (along with Christopher) represented the younger generation. Pauline had brought back fresh salmon she caught yesterday from the lake district which they served as carpaccio - "cooked" in lemon juice with capers and parmesan cheese. Quite amazing.

Martes, 8 decembre Talca a Concepcion

Hola!  We made it.  

    We had a very pleasant breakfast at our hotel and while loading the van kept hearing cattle lowing in the distance and noise that suggested a cattle drive or something.  We decided to take a walk and investigate.  Down the street  we found a livestock auction arena just revving up for a day of selling.  There were 30 or 40 pens that had raised walkways all around them so prospective buyers could investigate the stock.  We took seats in the stands and watched as the preparations were made.  Luckily they started with the horses, because we had much more interest in them.  We resisted bidding on a mare/foal duo and one or two other good looking horses! Around quarter of 11, we realized we had better get going if we were going to arrive in Concepcion by early afternoon.  

    The drive from Talca was an easy one and although we saw several carabineros set up for traffic stops, we were spared today.  Patrick Clemo, who has been keeping in touch with Grandma (who is now going to be referred to as Tia Peddie-as that is her name here in the Clemo family) over the years through e-mail, told us to call him when we were south of the town of Chillan where there is a new turnoff for Concepcion so that he could come and meet us to lead us into town.   It was a good thing because Nuvi seems to have gotten confused the farther south we go and, although our little blue arrow was always on the street that it said we were on, it couldn't seem to find the way to Patrick's house!   Patrick rode with us while Jay and Pegg rode into town with Patrick's son David and his girlfriend, Melanie.  We learned from Patrick that Melanie was very interested to hear about the 1976 hosting of the Esmeralda crew by the Robinson family, because her grandfather was the captain of the Esmeralda at that time!!  We had a long talk about it with her at dinner.

    The Clemo family very graciously offered to house all six of us during our stay in Concepcion, so Barb and Tia Peddie are staying with Patrick's mother, Joan.  Pegg and Jay are staying with Patrick and his wife Rose, and Dan and Martha are staying with Patrick's sister Beverly and her husband Antonio.  We all settled into our respective homes and then met at Patrick and Rose's for a BBQ.  Lots of great pictures were taken there, but not by us, as we had misplaced the camera and forgot to collect everyone else's camera before splitting up to go back "home" to bed!   More pictures tomorrow.  Buenas noches,  The Blissful Blisses
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~~~_/)~~~D&M

After breakfast at the hotel, Dan, Martha, Jay and Pegg walked down the Avenida San Miguel toward Talca to find the source of a lot of cattle lowing and found a livestock auction arena. We climbed into the stand and watched while the horses and cattle were herded into different pens in preparations for the auction. We enjoyed watching the subtle bidding action for about half an hour.

Get out the tissues again. Grandma could barely contain herself when we saw the first sign showing that Concepcion was only 136 km away!

As we left Ruta 5 just south of Chillan and headed toward the ocean (and Concepcion) we went over the coastal range where much of the land is taken up by stands of very regimented plantings of both pine and eucalyptus trees. We understood why when we came upon a tremendous paper mill.

This is the incredible view from Dan and Martha's room (at Beverly and Antonio's house) high above the city of Concepcion and the BioBio River. We'll get a daytime shot tomorrow.

Monday, Dec 7th, Santiago to Talca

     We are on our way south.  We waited until after a leisurely breakfast at the hotel to leave on our journey.  The traffic proved to be very light as tomorrow is a big holiday, so, many people had Monday off too.  Nuvi did an admirable job of getting us out of the city and we started off down Ruta 5, for the town of Talca. We stopped at a service station once we were out of the city for diesel and were amazed how much like a WaWa or a Sheetz it was.  All sorts of foods and services.  Jay took over the driving from Dan and we headed off with the Andes to our left (looking much clearer away from the smog of Santiago) and the coastal range on the right.  All seemed fine until we were signaled by a carbinero (the police) to pull over!  Jay handed over his international license and his passport and had the carbineros quite confused as to how to handle his paperwork. The rest of us all had great fun teasing Jay about how we would be bailing him out.  It seems it was just a routine traffic check so we were on our way after about 10 minutes.

     We decided to try Nuvi's talent at finding a restaurant with very little success.  I don't think it was Nuvi's fault, there just weren't that many places to eat, so Dan checked the FODOR's we had brought along and we decided to try the Miguel Torres Winery and Restaurant after reading a very good write-up.  Up till now we had been very unhappy with Fodor's, but decided it paid for itself for finding Micguel Torres for us.  We thought the food in Santiago was good - - -GUAU this place was terrific.  The setting, in the middle of a vineyard was great and the food plus presentation amazing!  We ended the meal with coffee on the veranda surrounded by thousands of grape vines.

     We arrived in Talca at 4:00 and found the Villa del Tillicana easily.  It's VERY different from the Holiday Inn Express.  The boys call it "a bit of the viejo (old) Chile."  - - -but here I am using their Wifi, so who's to complain.  Dan warned me not to take a shower unless I didn't mind the water turning cold before I was done.  We did have a lovely time out behind the Inn sipping wine sitting in their gardens by the not yet ready swimming pool.  We drove back into town for dinner at the Casino Hotel which proved to be just as fancy as lunch!  Amazing presentations of all the dishes and very reasonable.  We resisted the casino and headed back to our rustic rooms.  Buenos noches, D,M,J,P,B & Grandma Peddie

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~~~_/)~~~D&M

As we were packing this morning we realized we were looking out our window at the American Embassy (upper right-Barb says the moat is to ward off terrorists-ha ha). Our other window looked at the tallest building in Chile (left). The lower right shows the building that will be the tallest in all of S.A. when it is finished.

Some caballeros riding along a service road, we thought they might be on a pilgramage to a special church for tomorrow's Dia del Concepcion Immaculata.

We crossed the River Claro on our way by Curico. Most of the rivers we have crossed look like this - - very wide with very little water and certainly not navigable.

Luckily Jay's charm and great command of Spanish kept him safe from the carbineros. This was just a routine traffic check, and he (we) passed!

Pegg kept talking about the "Mauricio ten" referring to the 10 lbs. we put on eating all the great food while in his care, but we can't blame it on him anymore! Our lunch stop today proved to be most elegant. Each entree was "partnered" with one of the wines produced at the vineyard and all were excellent. Dan's seafood platter, including oyster shooters (in the small goblets) was the most dramatic and he says the best.

Very pleasant cocktail hour (or was it two?) enjoyed out by the pool (not yet operational) at our stop in Talca, just a mile off Route 5 on San Miguel Av. in Talca.

Barb joins us for Day 3 in Santiago.

     Dan and Jay were up and out by 6 AM to meet sister Barb at the airport.  Her flight from LAX included a stopover in Lima, Peru, so she was ready for a nap when they got back to the hotel at 7:45.  We  had a relaxing morning in the hotel and picked up Mauricio at 11 AM for a quick trip to "the MALL".  As Mauricio  says, "GUAU" - - translation WOW!  It was the biggest mall we'd ever seen.  Three levels and every standard mall store we know, like GAP, Esprit, Timberland etc, and thousands more.  We were in search of a SIM card for our "unlocked" Bahamian cell phone to use while we are here.  It took visits to several different kiosks before we succeeded, but succeed we did, we are now "connected"   We also wanted a small step to help get Grandma up in the van.   We solved that problem with a small cooler, that can serve dual functions!  Dan, Mauricio and I were together and were running late to make the rendezvous with the others, so I decided to head back ahead of Dan and Mauricio to meet up with the rest.  Well, long story short I got lost!  Ah but now I had a cell phone,  BUT Mauricio was in a dead zone.  Small panic, but eventually we connected.
     We dropped Mauricio at home after the mall and drove up Cerro San Cristobal, a famous mountain park in the middle of the city.  We enjoyed a light lunch on the veranda of a very nice restaurant with a wonderful view of the whole city, with the Andes as a backdrop.  All but Grandma hiked to the top observation spot for an even better view.  We then headed back to the hotel to regroup and get ready for supper with Mauricio's family.  It's hard not to keep using superlatives to describe the enjoyment of  getting to know his whole family.  A great evening!   Buenos noches, D,M,J,P,B and Grandma P
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~~~_/)~~~D&M

We revisited The Grange School here in Santiago where Jay attended boarding school in the 1950's.

After lunch near the top of San Cristobal, all but Grandma Peddie climbed to the spot of their last visit there in 1955.

Another great meal to end another great day. Mauricio took us to a restaurant at the base of San Cristobal that specializes in Chilean food. Hard to tell which was better, the food or the company. Mauricio and Carolina's three children are amazingly well behaved and didn't quale at the two and a half hour dinner! They did play outside the restaurant some of the time.