13Feb14
Yesterday, Chris and I celebrated seven years since our first date. We had a delicious dinner cooked by the owners of the guesthouse where we’re staying, and nearly all the items came from their garden. Seriously some of the best meals we’ve had in Chile. They’re always harvesting tons of tomatoes, squash, apples, peas, basil, cucumber, and so on.
We just spent the past hour sharing some wine with the owners and some other visitors: two women from Switzerland doing a round-the-world trip, and a family from Rome who just moved to Santiago. It was such a great evening and one of our most memorable!
When other Chileans heard we were visiting Los Ángeles, they all gave us funny looks and asked why. The city of Los Ángeles isn’t much — just a small agro-industrial city. But in addition to the national parks nearby, there are a couple places where local Chileans like to visit during the holidays: Salto del Laja and Saltillo del Itata.
Salto del Laja is a beautiful waterfall, but it was a bit empty compared to previous years since apparently there wasn’t much snow the past winter. Lots of locals were posing for photos, taking a dip in the water, and looking around for the places with the best view.
It’s quite the local attraction, with hostels and cabañas (cottages) available for visitors. There’s also a long line of food stands and souvenir shops.
We also ventured over to the Rio Itata. There were no marked trails, but there was a path that was clearly used by horses (guess how we knew?) that we followed along the river which was very pretty. A family having a barbecue told us how to find a small waterfall nearby — because we can’t go a single day without seeing a waterfall, apparently — so we went to go check that out. It’s called Saltillo del Itata, which is about 20 minutes north of the town of Campenario.
It’s pretty small, and people walk around on top of it because it’s so shallow. There are campgrounds and picnic tables, mostly full of big Chilean families. The cool water was a nice respite from the heat, although maybe we’ll be missing the heat once we’re down in Patagonia.
Lastly, because we didn’t give you anything for Travel Tip Tuesday, here’s a Travel Tip Thursday special:
When looking for cheap airfare on sites like Kayak, Expedia, etc., find the flight you want and then check the price on the airline’s website. We did that today and got an even better deal. It’s easy to forget to do that.
See you in Valdivia!
