didnt do much on friday because we woke up quite late (we were both recovering from traveling and whatnot). so on saturday he gave me a tour of the nearby towns north of us and gave me the history of what happened after the 2010 earthquake/tsunami, which was devastating. the epicenter of the quake was in the ocean, 4km literally outside his home, and amazingly, the only major damage to his home was a cracked window. his home is high on a bluff, but these beach towns just north and south of him are not. lots of houses and shops got wiped out, and there is still plenty evidence from the tsunami and quake. he was in his home town, vina del mar, during the quake. if his father hadnt just gotten out of the hostpital from hip surgery, he would have been here instead. he told me if he had been here to witness first hand the devistation, he might have been too traumatized to come back and likely would have sold the place, which is so sad to think about because it is soooo beautiful here! anyway, we went to curanipe first and checked out the beach, and happened to run into some surfing friends (we run into his friends any time we’ve gone into a town because he is so friendly and knows lots of the locals). then we went to the house of a good friend of his who is the mayor of a town called chanco (we will go there soon) to say hi and give the family some flea meds they asked him to pick up. for their dogs and cat. lovely family. then we drove further north to pelluhue, which is even flatter than curanipe and there was lots of damage still left over. he was giving me a ‘driving’ tour, so i didnt stop to take photos, but lots ruins from washed out houses. then we got some groceries in little open air markets. of course, he knows most the shop owners and in a particular market got one to separate out some special local blue eggs for us (from a bag that had local eggs of all colors, but apparently the blue ones are infrequently available and he said they taste particularly good - which i can now vouch for). i’ve also been eating local goat milk yogurt, which tastes amazing!
