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.

We allowed ourselves the luxury of a whole week off. 18th and 19th were on Tuesday and Wednesday this year, which meant the government also allowed Monday (17th) to be a bank holiday. On top of that, we  took 2 days of annual leave to get a proper rest ;o)

So, what is new?

OUTDOOR ACTIVITIES

We went on our first mountain bike excursion (this was actually the weekend before the holiday but kind of felt like part of the holiday!). The hills are just a 10 to 20 kilometres road cycle from home before one gets onto more interesting terrain and there are plenty of routes to choose from. We opted for an old dirt road that winds its way up from Lo Barnechea through the El Arrayán Nature Reserve. Not sure exactly where the track leads to, maybe one day soon we'll go back to find out. This time we just went up to around 1500m ASL for some nice (although somewhat smoggy) views of Santiago before heading back down.
A couple of photos below (or for higher resolution here):

The following Sunday we went for a walk very close to El Arrayán, essentially the other side of the ridge we had mountain biked up and down the week before. We were aiming for one of the peaks of around 2500m in elevation (Cerro Conchali) and after ascending 1400m over the course of 4 hours we made it to the top. From up there we didn't only have great views of Santiago (again, somewhat smog inhibited though) but also the snow covered Cordillera to the East.

Photos of Conchali below (or in higher resolution here):

The following days we were a little sore and therefore opted for a slightly more touristy route on our most recent trip last Wednesday:  El Salto de Apoquindo . This is another nature reserve very close to and very accessible from the city which appeared to be fairly organised, with well marked trails and compost toilets, etc. There are three separate paths, the longest of which climbs from about 800m ASL to 1600m ASL to a water fall of maybe 30m in height. The valley that this path climbs up is very lush and green this time of the year, which we enjoyed very much given that Santiago is in a fairly dry region and most hill walking around here consequently is relatively dusty and rather more brown than green.

Photos of el Salto de Apoquindo below (or in higher resolution here):

These two routes can be found in our outdoor activities tab.

TOURISM - a visit to a Fonda and a visit to Valparaiso

We went to a Vegan Fonda. Fondas are venues/pubs/tents decorated for the 18th and 19th of September with chilean flags. To commemorate the creation of Chile as a Nation, the chilenas/os try to emphasise national folklore. They go to Fondas to drink, eat typical food (mostly meat these days though there is also choclo pies, empanadas, anticuchos, sopaipillas, nice sopaipilla recipe here etc), and dance Cueca.

The Vegans over here have created a bit of an alternative event where all the usual meat junk is replaced by vegetarian "meat" junk. Almost certainly a lot less cholesterol but the lack of unprocessed veg and wholemeal bread is still not great for digestive transit. Though we had fun, played bingo and met some friends there.

We also visited Valparaiso (finally!). The city is a real contrast to Santiago, much smaller and in many ways more alternative. Valparaiso used to be an important port city (until the Panama canal was opened, at this point, it stopped making sense for North-american ships to go all the way around south america to get from the east to the west coast of the US so Valparaiso stopped being a flourishing port). One can, however, still see that it must have once been a very rich city.

It also has the peculiarity that the port is surrounded by very steep hills, where different (fairly isolated) districts have sprouted. Each hill has its own personality, street art and neighbourhood atmosphere as people much rather buy locally than go all the way down and all the way up their hill to buy for example some bread from the supermarket. This means there is a much stronger sense of community than in Santiago (for example).

For anyone interested in a day trip, we strongly recommend Tours4tips. There are tours everyday at from "Plaza de Justicia" at 10am and at 3pm (look out for the guy with the red and white stripped top, like Wally). After your tour, you choose what to tip your guide. We were recommended these tours by a couch surfing member and it was a great use of our time (saw and learnt a lot in a very short time). Some photos below or higher resolution here:

COOKING

We cooked  a bit (we will add the following recipes with photos to the blog shortly: yellow thai curry, Spanish omelette, beetroot rissoto and sopaipillas - a typical national dish)

VEGETABLE GROWING

We made a lot of progress with our vegetable growing.

We have now planted out some pumpkin, tomatoes, sunflowers, peas, broad beans calendulas, borage, chard, lettuce, rucola, carrots, chickpeas (!), fennel, garlic and broccoli (this one is out of season so will probably do badly! :op)
We have planted seeds of watermelon, melon, pepper, linseeds, aubergine and several chilli and tomato varieties. We are really excited to see if they will sprout and we may get some homegrown watermelon this year! :o)

MORE NEWS:

We got a new family member. Her name is Margarita (or Marge for short) and her story is quite sad as with many abandoned dogs. She was abandoned by the side of the road with a breast tumor bigger than her head. This has now been removed and she is recovering well.

Worth mentioning that puppies are in high demand in Santiago (especially if they are "pure breed"). But since she is a sweet old lady (perhaps 10 years or so) and she does not hear very well, it is likely that noone would re-home her. She is fairly fit and already loving the vegan grub that we are serving her (still does not understand that carrots are edible, but she may get there in time!) :o)

 

(Mario not yet so keen on our new family member, he likes being "the one and only lion king")

But he pretends he is happy when there are humans around... ;o)

CHANGES TO THE BLOG

We made some improvements to out blog - first we relocated all the Sustainable Chile Links. Things were getting a little messy and, after speaking with Patricia's colleagues, we noticed that there was a need for people in Chile (and in Santiago in particular) to have a more centralised online resource where they could find important information on how to live more sustainably.

The new blog is called Chile Sostenible and will grow to contain information on all things sustainable in Chile and beyond. At the moment it covers some main areas: transport and air quality, recycling and consumption, food and health, a map with shops, recycling spots, organic markets etc in Santiago and finally some links to videos that in our view are a must-watch to understand sustainability and the pressing issues surrounding our lives and environment at present (in particular, I can recommend the 6 minute clip in the mission tab).

We have added a map to the blog with all our trekking routes and we'll try to keep it up to date.