Santiago, Chile - Week 3 (Santi)

Hello Family and Friends,

This week was full of great adventure. Atlas' daycare had a little Christmas dance and invited all the parents.

Atlas' class performing their Christmas dance.

Atlas with all his classmates and teachers. One teacher dressed up as Santa Clause or "Viejito Pascuero" as the Chileans call him.

They also had us decorate Christmas cookies as a family activity. I forgot how fun it is to decorate sugar cookies!

Immediately after Atlas's show we left town to head to the mountains. We went to "Valle de Maipo" which translates to Maipo Valley. It's about two and a half hours away from the city. Our goal was to make it to the hot springs. We didn't quite reach our goal. I mean, we made it to the location of the hot springs. However, they only took cash and Brett had lost his wallet. The upsetting part about him losing his wallet is that he found it, in his luggage, that he had brought with him for our weekend in the mountains. He had the wallet the whole time and didn't remember that he had put it in his luggage.

Anyway, even though we didn't get to go to the hot springs we had a really great time in the mountains.

One of the many stunning views as we are driving through the mountains.

It is a good thing that we rented a more rugged vehicle as not all of the road was paved or easy to transverse.

We literally crossed through a waterfall that passed over the road.

We stopped at a lake that was formed by a damn. The water was just such a bright blue color.

This is the super blue lake formed by the Yeso Dam.

Of course, we got out of the car to see if we could touch the waters of the damn. It was super cold and reminded me of when we were in Glacier National Park.

Bruce living his best life running off leash and playing along the shore of the Yeso Dam.

My favorite dudes, Atlas, Bruce and Brett, with the glacial mountains in the background.

We even passed by a heard of horses. Not sure if they were wild.

One of the horses was very close to the road.

Brett and I are definitely mountain people. Both of us agreed that being in the mountains was a day that just felt really good. The following day we headed to the Maipo wine valley and visited the Concha y Toro winery.

"Concha y Toro" translates to conch shell and bull.

Everytime we go to wineries I'm less offended by the taste of wine. I very well may turn into a wine drinker. Our winery tour was excellently done and we learned a lot about how wine is produced. For example only red wine is made in oak barrels. White wine is made in stainless steel vats. This particular winery has a very famous wine "Casillero del Diablo". This translates to "Devil's locker". There was a whole visual production telling us the legend behind the name of the wine "Casillero del Diablo". The founder of "Concha y Toro", Don Melchor had a very impressive wine collection that people kept stealing. So he created a story that there was a devil in the cellar where the wine was kept and the story stuck as well as protected his wine.

Visual production of the legend of "Casillero del Diablo"

Wooden barrels full of Don Melchor wine in "Casillero del Diablo". Chileans call it the finest wine in the world.

The whole family enjoying our winery visit.

I actually have some sad news, the winery tour was our last adventure with Bruce. We are going to be headed to some island countries who have very strict laws about pets, making it impossible to travel with Bruce. So we made the decision to fly him back to the states to stay with my sister, Ruth (Thanks!). Brett took a quick there and back flight to the states from Santiago (It wasn't that quick considering it was 20+ hours of flying in 2 days.) So for at least the next few months, we will be without Bruce.