Chile, Siete Tazas

We left lovely Valparaiso, passed through a couple of tunnels, and went to the Santiago airport {which is on the west side of town, so was easy to get to from Valpo} to drop off Erin, and then drove south. Plan was to stay somewhere cute in wine country but we ran into a sunday town party that both killed time and our ability to get anywhere in town, so we pushed on to Parque Nacional Siete Tazas. Alot of driving for Sara but waking up there was lovely.

 empty campground in a beech forest

 we each went for hikes. Sara's was more grand, again, i'll get pics of hers up eventually. i saw a cold tarantula and a happy lizard.

 i should mention, we had a lovely lunch at the end of the road in the park, a huge slab of steak with gravy and a potato puree as they call it. really hit the spot. Chilean food in general isn't very good, but they can cook meat and potatoes.

 Siete Tazas means 7 cups. When the water level is lower it's easier to see, but in this gorge there are 7 pools, 4 or 5 of them are in these pictures.

 salt lick on the road we reckoned

 bridal veil falls, downstream of the 7 cups

 2 cuties

 note the sign

 cowboy on a cell phone

Chile, south central coast

Really quite magical. Again, we wish we had more time. Lovely seafood. Nice countryside.

 Panam

 lots of timber industry evidence

 plowing with oxen

 slate walls

 cemetary

 sea lion island

 beach camping

 that's a nescafe smile

 another chilean playground

 we passed these piggies a couple of times. super cute

 place called church of the rock

 we had a nice seafood lunch here. locos are abalone, though we didn't try them. next time...

 more slate walls

 some slate in it's natural form

 it's a big potato growing region

 Halloween must be earlier in Chile

 the old haciendas had huge porches

 plantation

 log truck

 clear cut

 milky way, s hemi style

 slept on the beach again. major fog valleys to the north and south of us

 lone fisherman. he had big longshore gillnets that he reeled in by hand.

 this place was magic

 kind of grating after the last series of pics, but funny. Chileans love hotdogs for some reason

 yet another playground

 really cool

last pic from Chile, back north towards Santiago. this isn't the panam, but still a decent highway.