Niebla, the sweet and fierce street dog

Niebla made it to our lives in January 2017. She was a beautiful mixed-breed dog, similar in appearance to a large black German Shepherd. She had lived many years as a street dog in the University of Chile campus in La Florida in the South of Santiago, and it showed. Many students there knew her as Guaily for her big size. We were told that in her old age she befriended, and used to follow around, the gardener of the campus while he was carrying out his daily tasks. However, that year, when the students left for the summer holidays, she fell into a depression and she was advertised as a dog that needed re-homing (and who probably would not live longer than a few months). Thank you to A4 U Chile for their incredible work looking after and re-homing these animals.

Mid-winter update

Back in January, when we wrote our last blog post, we knew that 2020 would have the potential to become quite a ...restless... year. Everyone expected a rekindling of the social protests in Chile in March, as soon as southern summer holiday season ended, and emotions running high in the run-up (and beyond) of the Constitutional Referendum, which was originally scheduled for late April. Little did we know back then what course the year would take...

La Ruta de los Jesuitas / Paso de los Vuriloches

A few years back, while on holidays in the Los Lagos Region in the South of Chile, we heard of a trek called "La Ruta de los Jesuitas". It follows one of the historic trading and missionary routes that connects Argentina across the Andes with Chile, via a pass with the name Vuriloche. Start and end points are the hamlets of Pampa Linda (Argentina) and Ralún (Chile).

Spring in Pucón: sendero cinco cascadas, Rucapillan volcano, termas & hydrospeed

Since October we have been living near Pucón, some 650km south of Santiago, which is one of the main tourist hubs in south-central Chile, known for its snow-capped volcanoes, temperate rain forests, beautiful lakes and hot-springs. Its picture-postcard-highlight is Rucapillan (which in the language of the Mapuche means "the house of the Spirit"), more commonly known as the Villarrica volcano.