Embalse los Aromos

I had a restless night's sleep. First, as I was falling asleep, I suddenly realized that my time left in Chile is a maximum of 3 more months. This thought of so little time makes me sufficiently upset to vomit on the floor, so I will cast that aside as best as I can. I had a dream that it was my last day before leaving, and I was visiting all the Valpo ascensores for the last time, but as I went around trying to see them I was pulled away by other things I had to do in order to prepare for travel. The pulling away may have been literal or a mental pull, I am not sure, but I am sure that it was a sad day. I woke up with the vomit thought still there.

I was long overdue for another adventure in that little gray van thing that Dani and I took to Colliguay with her friends, so we had another one. Same deal, we metroed our way to Quilpué, to Villa Alemana on the outskirts, and boarded the gray death van with Dani's friends on a quest to Embalse los Aromos. I use the term death van lightly, but I probably shouldn't. It is a vehicle designed to transport stuff, like to a market, so it doesn't have side windows. This may be a good thing in a rollover (I pictured us neatly tumbling into a ravine, without fear of broken glass cuts at least), but I wonder how you would get out. But we wanted to see the pretty ravine, so how did we accommodate this? Drive with the doors open. The back seat is about a foot and a half high and slightly but uncomfortably reclined. and only has room for 3 people, not 4 like we needed. How did we accommodate this? we added a stool for the 4th person. A stool. I assure you that at least I was safer than you think, because I secured myself in the center, away from open doors, and we did not drive fast, I promise. Oh, there were no seats for the kids. How did we accomodate this? We lined the trunk (open to the back seat) with cushions and pillows.

We did not drive fast because the road was... definitely the ones less traveled. It was earth, washed out, and surrounded by gorgeous mountain forest. ( I want you to know that I looked up the word 'gorgeous' in the dictionary just to see if it had two meanings: aside from meaning "really pretty" I was hoping for a ridiculously amazing pun of "full of gorges;" i.e. "The interior of Chile is known for it's GORGEous [mountainous] landscape." This meaning does not exist, but it should. I will coin it and hopefully in the process make a lot of money.) Back to the story.

The Embalse los Aromos, which means reservoir los Aromos, is set in the mountains north of Quilpué. We crossed over gullys, at one point turning the vehicle at such a steep angle that Dani was prompted to respond "Concha su madre!!" while surely envisioning the van on its side, but we made it. The scrub forest is full of California Quail (which oddly enough I have never encountered in the US), Tiuque (caracaras; large falcons that closely resemble hawks), and rabbits. I searched and searched, but despite the enormous amount of rabbit evidence, none were to be found out of their burrows. The climate in the interior is completely different than Viña and Valpo. Temperatures are more extreme, and even though Quilpué is 30 minutes inland, the weather is often different. The other day we had ocean fog and in Quilpué it was hot and sunny.

I am going to backtrack to lunch. We dined at 3:30 at the house of Dani's friends. First note: the hospitality. I was given so much, offered so much, engaged in the event. Second: Chileans like mayonnaise, a lot. We ate mayonnaise on rice, along with meats and empanadas. I have quite taken to this mayonnaise taste. Yes, slowly converting to Chileanism...