La Serena

During the long weekend of the 1st of November we went north to La Serena with David and Nora our Spanish friends. The city of La Serena kept its colonial architecture and is surrounded of natural wonders.
Such as the valley del Elqui, where the Pisco - traditional Chilean/Peruan alcohol - is made. We also went up mountain for a night of star observations.

The valley del Equi has its own micro climate, quite warm, even in winter. There grows wine and the traditional Pisco is made.

We enjoyed some pastel de choclo (gratin de mais) in the central market of the city.

Buenos Aires

For the long holidays of the "Fiestas Patrias" we decided to cross the border and go to visit the Argentinian capital.

The contrast between Santiago with its American influence and Buenos Aires which looks like Europe was surprising. Buenos Aires is quite big with 17 millions inhabitants and is filled with museums, parks and beautiful avenues, culture was everywhere in the city.

Puerto Madero is a modern port with a lot of charms, quite similar to the docklands in Dublin.

Caminito is located in La Boca, a colorful bohemian neighbourhood with italian influences.

Tigre is the little venise of Argentina. Made of hundreds of canals, it hosts the antique summer houses of the Buenos Aires bourgeoisie

We couldn't miss the famous Tango.

The delicous "Asado Argentino" we could enjoy in our hostel

The pink house is residence of the president.

Puerto Varas - Frutillar

We went south for a long weekend with friends. It was the occasion to visit the Saltos del Petrohue, impresisve waterfalls in a big river. We also visited the area, with Puerto Varas and its huge lake and surrounding volcanoes. We had a quick visit of the island of Chileo, where we tried the famous Curanto, it is traditionaly served as sea food and meat cooked together in a hole in the ground.

Los Saltos del Petrohue

Frutillar is a nice village with German influences next to a quiet lake. The speciality of the place is the German cake, the Kuchen.

Frutillar

Pucon

Nearly 800km south of Santiago is Pucon, a little town on the bank of the Villarrica lake. The volcan of the same name dominates the city and you can even see the red light out of the crater at night! We enjoyed the great Geometric hot springs, lost in a canion covered by vegetation. We make a trekking in the Huerquehue national park, seeing lakes, centennial trees and even foxes! The city is also great with typical restaurants and asados with tender meat!

The Geometrical hot springs are some of the nicest we have seen.

The Huerquehue park have beautiful sceneries.