Santa Cruz, Siete Tazas and Tarantulas

We had an awesome weekend. Friday we spent some time in Santa Cruz, a small city a couple of hundred kilometers south from Santiago. It is a traditional town known mainly for its crafts and wines. Saturday morning, we spent our time like proper tourist wandering the handcraft markets.

Then we moved on to Parque Nacional Siete Tazas. A natural reserve where the Claro de Molina river starts. The reserve is beautiful, it has native forests and the river valley is well worth a visit (pictures are often better than descriptions!)

Camino Farellones - by bike

One of the tourist attractions of Santiago are the ski resourts in the Cordillera east of town. At this time of the year, of course, they are pretty dead and ugly, i.e. ski lifts dotting a dusty hillside next to a couple of ghost towns. There isn't a lot of traffic going to and from, which in turn means the road leading there has become a reasonably popular bike challenge.

Volcán Villarica

Well looks like we've been too busy to write blog posts again lately... We had our first family visitors from Europe, our little veggie garden is coming along nicely thanks to a couple of weekends of efforts we dedicated to it, and we climbed our first volcano!

La vida (y la muerte) en la jungla del trafico

(This is a Spanish version of a previous post due to popular demand :o))

Parece ser que 608 peatones murieron como resultado de ser atropellados y más de 8000 sufrieron lesiones en las calles de Santiago en el 2011 (ver cifras de la CONASET). Hace tan solo unos meses que Christian fue testigo de como alguien que cruzaba por un paso peatonal con semaforo en  Avenida Manquehue fue atropellado por un auto que giraba mientras la luz seguía en verde para los peatones. El conductor no lo vio, estaba distraído o quien sabe que… En Santiago los accidentes pasan a menudo y aqui les dejamos un enlace que mapea los puntos más concurridos de accidentes.

Santiago air (again, sorry...)

We could help but posting this quickly: Today Christian received a replacement filter for his bicycle mask (they have to be mail-ordered from abroad). We mentioned a few weeks ago that we started using them in our attempts to deal with the filthy air in this city (see our post in August).

Spring has sprung - mountain biking, trekking, cooking and gardening

September is the month when spring arrives in Santiago and one can noticeably feel it. The trees blossom, the temperature goes up and stays in the twenty plus during the day quite often. The 18th and 19th of September are national holidays (link in English here) which means that often (when they fall on any other day but Saturday or Sunday) most people get a little break.

The medical system in Chile

Lots has happened since our last post! We had been postponing for a while using the medical system in Santiago (for general check ups and other non-urgent stuff). This was not out of worry about bad doctors or hospitals but instead, we were aware that we had to learn to use the system and in Chile things are often not as straight-forward as one may think.

Life (and death) in the traffic jungle

Apparently 608 pedestrians got run over and killed in the Streets of Santiago in 2011, and more than 8,000 injured (see CONASET). Only a few months ago Christian witnessed how someone, walking across the three south-bound lanes of Avenida Manquehue while the pedestrian lights were green, got hit by a left-turning car. The driver just hadn't seen him or was distracted or who knows. Accidents happen all the time and here's a link to a website which maps the hot spots.

Urban gardening - Huerto en la ciudad

Back in Santiago and to our normal routine. We decided that this weekend would be perfect to start an urban vegetable plot.

How to overcome our marriage phobia...

11 weeks ago we had a wonderful weekend camping and trekking together in Yerba Loca with little Mario. As the 3 of us were cuddling up in the tent, trying to keep warm-up in the cold night, in a valley at about 2800m, we decided (democratically ;o)) to get married... Mario started this conversation and then fell asleep.

Cage Diving with Great White Sharks

So, after the ascent of table mountain and with only one day left in South Africa, we decided to do something educational... getting to know the local fauna in its habitat, more specifically: Great White Sharks.

Table Mountain

Having travelled all this way to Cape Town we didn't want to miss the opportunity to explore some of the highlights while we were there, of course. Our activity packed weekend started Friday afternoon with convincing Patricia's colleagues to join us on a scramble up Table Mountain the following day.

Veg Warriors in Cape Town

It is now almost a year since we moved to Chile and this blog so far covered our frequent ups and and occasional downs. For the next few weeks, however, it will turn into something of a travel blog as we are not actually in Chile at the moment.

Lemon drizzle cake... with chocolate topping

Autumn is here, so what best to cheer us up than eating cake!

The recipe below is my adaptation of something I read somewhere on the internet. Definitely worth tasting and for all the dieters out there, you will be glad to know it is low fat too! (note, low fat does not mean low sugar, good for you etc... but it is fairly healthy as far as cakes go! ;o))

Receta de tarta de limon y chocolate (vegana!!!) baja en grasa, en espanol.

La Vega - a real Santiago experience

Autumn has now definitely made it to Santiago. Friday we had lots of rain. After spending many years in the Rainy Kingdom we didn't believe we would feel this way but here rain is actually great! We don't have to water the garden and after a good downpour the Santiago smog is usually gone for a few hours (during the week) or days (weekend / holiday season). So Saturday and Sunday we have enjoyed clean fresh air (certainly for Santiago standards) and lovely blue skies!

Third time lucky

Before we moved here we had heard about how Chile is the least corrupt country in South America. Whenever one comes across such statements, Chile's endemic bureaucracy is usually mentioned in the same breath, though. Bureaucracy vs corruption... when one is at the receiving end of it the differences sometimes are hard to make out.

Yerba Loca

A few weeks ago we went on a beautiful walk in a nature sanctuary called Yerba Loca not far from Santiago. Back then we decided to come back for more over the long Easter weekend, and so we did. This time equipped for a couple of nights of wild camping.

Work life, gender parity and Verrücktes Graß (or Hierba Loca)

Working life I dare say is different in every city. In Santiago there are a few things that I have started to notice. My office environment is really good, there is a strong team spirit, I am allowed to work from home a couple of days a week (not that I would say this is common at all in Santiago!) and I have a fair degree of freedom on what to wear (again, I would say this is not the norm in Chile).

New house, new license, a movie screening in autumn

We are moving again!
The area where we live is slowly being taken over by big developers. They are turning a family home with garden type neighbourhood into 25 floor apartment blocks. We now have 5 tall construction cranes within 200m from here and noisy concrete lorries drive past our house all the time.

Of course, there are pros and cons to this... pros, more people fit in less space. Less materials are needed to take gas and electricity to everyone, less miles to collect rubbish, less energy needed to heat the space etc... you get the picture.

Los Ríos - volcanos, lakes, rain forest and hot springs

Throughout January and February we didn't really get out of town. I guess we were too busy with work and other things - we had a few couch surfers around and on Saturdays we went to watch German movies screened by the Goethe Institut. Jan and Feb is also the main holiday season in Chile and therefore the traffic, pollution and general huzzle and buzzle in the city is only half as bad as for the rest of the year. So actually quite a good time to stay put.

Freegan dogs eat fruit and veg, they also take the bus

A bit of a light hearted post...

We are very impressed by how quickly Mario has learnt that all sorts of veg can be eaten. He has reached the stage where he knows how to eat corn on the cob (without eating the cob, just eating the corn!):

Making Vegetable milks in pictures

A few weeks ago we finally decided to go back to basics and start making our own milk from scratch. Reasons for doing this:

1. it is healthier
2. you know what you are eating
3. you decide what ingredients you put and adjust taste accordingly

Supringsinly, it is REALLY easy and quick to do! So here is how:

Our new house mate

A few weeks ago, it must have been in early December, we noticed that we had a new house mate. No, it wasn't another street dog which followed us home or anything like that. He or she (...we haven't got very intimate, yet) might have even lived there before we moved in, it's hard to tell.