My trip

I will apologize for the shortness of this blog since it should cover enough material for a short book, but I have little time to write it...
The trip overall had a lot of ups and a lot of downs...
Rachel and Alison started the trip thursday night and headed towards Pucon where AShlee and I met them late Saturday night. Ihave to admit that there are few things I love more than traveling with Ashlee. After all our random trips together (day trips to Santa Barbara, the summer in New Jersey, weekends in New York and Chicago) we have found it easy to travel together.
Anyways we met up with Rachel and Alison and the next morning got back on a bus headed for Valdivia. As soon as our bus crossed the little bridge into Valdivia I decided that I was really going to like this town. The bus terminal was settled nicely next to the river and along a cement path that along along the river where families rollerskating, couples riding bikes, and other Valdivianos just enjoying a stroll in the early afternoon sun. It was precious!
We found a hostel after a little trouble and although it wasn't anything special it reminded of my home in La Serena and I felt comfortable there. The hostel owner told us to go to the Botanical Gardens that are behind the university in town. So we made it to the university and after walking around lost for a while and seeing nothing that looked like botanical gardens, we decided to off road it a little. We started walking through some thick bush and before you knew it we were hiking along a small stream trying to find some way out of the bush. We saw some grassy field on the other side of a stream and followed the stream looking for a way to cross without killing ourselves (or really just getting very dirty). We made it over the stream and began to wander in these hige green fields... needless to say my green loving friend Rachel was quiet happy. We were dissapointed that we never found the botanical garden, but this green grassy field seemed nice enough. After wandering the fields for some time we found a way out the area and as we were leaving we noticed a sign hung above an entrance into the area we were just in. It read Jardin Botanical (botanical garden). Yes, thats right folks, we had been in the garden the whole time and not known it.
That night we went to a cute bar next door to our hostel and seeing as we arrived at 7:45 and they opened to the public at 8, and the live music didn't start until midnight, we sat for a LONG time and talked over yummy drinks and a plate or two of fries with a incredible curry peanut sauce on it. At about 2am Ashlee and I headed home and left Rachel and Alison to enjoy the scene for a while longer. When we arrived to our room it was so cold that we just sat there not able to move for the first few minutes. Then slowly we began the process of getting ready for bed... which of cource included a viewing of Jennifer Lopez's movie Enough on tv before we went to sleep.

more to come...