Before i forget to mention it, i met an awesome dog monday. He belongs to the caretaker of one of Max’s neighbor’s house, and his name is Gandolf! He’s a beautiful tall, lean dog with a mild, contemplative manner and a greyish muzzle showing his age. He seems so wise! haha. I unfortunately could not capture a picture that gives this dog’s beauty the justice it deserves, but he is a breath of fresh air from the other more rowdy farm dogs ive encountered thus far. Raul left wednesday morning, and the weather was fairly nice, so one of Max’s neighbors/hired hands came over and they did a bunch of tree trimming and pruning while i was doing some finishing touches on the herb garden weeding job. When Arturo left for lunch, Max and I went buy veggies from a lady Loreto (Ricardo’s wife) recommended, from whom she buys her veggies. This lady (Patti) was super nice and had a small, sort of shabby but completely operational and lovely hoop house garden, completely organic. she also has chickens running around the big back ‘yard’ where the hoop house is located, and sheep fenced in near by. She uses the sheep manure to fertilize her veggies, and it clearly does the trick because her plants looked great! some of the biggest chard plants ive ever seen, and crisp beautiful lettuce and herbs. and she still had plenty of peppers and tomatoes although its the end of fall here. I had a big grocery bag full of veggies, and she only wanted to charge us 1000 pesos ($2, if that). and that is sort of the plight of small local growers around here. although they have an amazing product, the majority of people buying it cant afford to pay more than that. so of course max gave her double. i made a beautiful big salad that night. the next day was sort of rainy and gloomy; perfect for a slow-cooked veggie lentil stew dinner. it turned out amazing, and max said it was one of the best soups he has ever tasted, and then he started getting a bit emotional because it just so happened to be the 2 year anniversary of his dad’s last day being of sound mind. his father passed maybe 6 months later? but he said his father loved soup and would have highly approved of it.
we didnt do much other than normal house and yard chores on friday, but saturday was Ricardo’s bday, and his family had a (basically) all-day party to celebrate. we arrived around 1pm, and didnt leave until 1am. i know the family well enough now, and paulina (whose bday party we went to a couple weeks prior) was there, but otherwise everyone else was a new face. a big group of Ricardo’s childhood friends came, and of course only one of them brought a girlfriend, so the party mainly consisted of a bunch of older men. they were all very nice and respectful, but teasing is a big and normal part of chilean culture, and i was getting a lot of it that evening because the obvious ‘sore thumb’ at the party, and they just couldnt believe why i, blond hair blue eyed girl from LA was in a quaint rural chilean town. but it was fun, and i had some very interesting conversations that night. the sunset was also amazing, but of course i got no pictures. Loreto made an incredible, unforgettable lunch feast, and then later that night was a modest asado.
then sunday max and i went to Concepcion, which isnt too far south from Curanipe, but we took the more scenic, unpaved coastal road, which made the roughly 100km drive take 4 hours. unfortunately i didnt get many pictures. and although we took the same road back, it was very stormy and the weather wasnt good for photos. but we spent sunday and monday night with a friend of Max’s (Paulo) who lives about 15 minutes down the river Bio Bio, east of San Pedro de la Paz, which is the town across the river from Concepcion. The area was beautiful, and i guess you would call the region/environment a cold rain forest. we didnt get great weather while we were there, so didnt end up doing much site-seeing in town. but we went for walks along the river both mornings, Paulo took us to a great little restaurant in the port, a bit outside the city, where we had amazing fried seafood, shrimp, and crab empanadas. they served them with this amazing green ahi (chilean spicy chili) creamy sauce that i must try to replicate! the waitress was kind enough to list off the ingredients, but dummy me didnt write them down. i think i can remember them for the most part though…
we didnt get home til fairly late tuesday eve.
the organizational bug bit on wednesday, and i couldnt take it any longer that Max still hadnt unpacked all the stuff he brought from Vina del Mar here (mostly household supplies, various food stuffs, etc) sitting in boxes and bags in the loft. In addition to this, he has a great storage/crawl space up there full of potential room, but not being used to its potential because most the stuff there was tossed in and unorganized. so i kinda cracked the whip a bit that day and we spent the majority of it reorganizing. i need to create a sweet pantry system up there for him. he needs a solidly stocked pantry because there are no decent places to buy staples around here, but because it’s so poorly organized he (nor I) have a clue what he does/doesnt have. but no longer! he was very please to finally find homes for all this stuff and take back the space in his loft instead of it being riddled with boxes and bags. there is still more work to be done in the crawl space, but it is much improved and easier to navigate. however, i’m looking forward to continuing and finishing that job for him!
