Greetings from Chile!

Hola hola!

Reporting live from Pucon, a lovely lake village covered in blues and greens in central Chile!

Apologies for the lack of photos, the wifi just wont allow it.  If you want to check out the foto adventures hop on over to instagram

As some of you may know, Nola is closed for two weeks (January 1 – 15) for holiday and Ticol and I have escaped to Chile for some much needed mental cleansing and nurishment.

What better place than the nature?

The decision was last minute and a hard one to make.   I use to think businesses were crazy to close for holiday in Buenos Aires!  Its quite common here during the summer months of January and February to close shop for a couple (or more) weeks and I couldn’t make sense of it.  How do you just close?  Why are there not other people holding the fort down???  And now I get it.

I wont bore you with the details, lets not talk about work, after all, this is holiday blogging! (Side note, i’ve never used the term holiday until recently. Tez, I think you might be onto something.)

2015 rolled in and we jumped flight to Santiago, Chile. Airfare was reasonable and it had been decades since Ticol’s last visit, and the first for me. A roadtrip in the South was the plan until some last minute online research geared us in another direction- the lake district. We rented a (tiny blue manual!) car in Puerto Montt and began driving North staying in small towns along the way.

Chile is quite interesting!  The capital is clean and colorful, full of malls and many big companies from the USA.  There are mountains along the east side, monster size produce and the supermarkrts are lined with familiar products I haven’t seen in years- Tostitos, Act I popcorn, Jim Beam’s BBQ sauce, Snickers ice cream bars (!!),  and my favorite Aquafresh foaming toothpaste!  And the Philadephia cream cheese is just so inexpensive here compared to BA, I had to buy one!

We’ve bought a lot of this crap, and realized quickly that we don’t want this junk!  Kind of made me appreciate life in Buenos Aires in a rare and semi grateful for the import complications. I’d probably eat way more of this processed garbage if I had access to it.

Cheers cheers.

So now I sit with my mate, cherries and avocado passing the time between the pool, shade and lots of reading.  I haven’t brought my computer which was such a good decision. Wifi has been pretty bleak everywhere we’ve visited outside the capital and the disconnect has been appreciated.

We’ve been good nature people chasing waterfalls, swimming, kayaking, fishing and admiring snowcapped volcanoes and the starry nights.  The moon seems so much bigger here.

For our final week we are staying in Pucon, which in my world is the Chilean Mediterranean.   The weather is just perfect during the day and the evenings are chilly, a proper excuse for some recent purchases in Santiago!

We are resting. Refueling for 2015 and finding the time to reflect. Today I practiced yoga for the first time in weeks. I’ve been on a mission trying to find a mat with little success. And with all the hills its been challenging finding a spot!  Earlier this morning I headed to the terrace and began my practice which brought me lots of tranqui joy.  Soon afterwards I found a flat grassy patch near the pool and decided that will be Pucon yoga space.

I’m rereading The Alchemist and being responsible with the sunblock.  Life is slow and simple at the moment, I’d like to find a way to bring that back to Buenos Aires with us.

Driving (a stick shift!) through the colorful roads has been absolutely thrilling.

I do hope the new year is as rewarding for all of you!

Will write more later, must get back to the nature.

And don’t forget, Nola will be back in action on January 16, 5pm sharp!

LizaNola