30Jan14
Don’t worry, we’re alive. We’ve both just been busy with our projects! Chris is still taking Spanish classes for four hours a day and took on an online gig. I’ve been getting ready to launch my first e-book. And, we’ve been looking for a place for the next leg of our trip to the Lakes Region of Chile.
I snapped the photo above because I love how red the tree is. In the background is Palacio Vergara; it was a mansion, then a museum, and now nothing because it was badly damaged in the last earthquake. Speaking of earthquakes, there was a 4.9 with an aftershock this morning! Like California, Chile is right on a fault line and experiences many terremotos.
Also, our friends Laura and Chris posted their photos from our cooking class last week. Fun!
We’re approaching the end of month four of our leap year. Crazy. We posted a few reflections at the end of month one, so I thought it would be good to throw a few more out there. In no particular order:
- It’s nice to be in small to medium-sized cities. Still lots to do, but not quite so crowded and frenetic.
- Chris wishes he’d started taking his Spanish classes sooner. It’s harder to learn just by traveling, but easy to learn when you have a foundation.
- We haven’t used a clothes dryer in two months.
- When we first set out, we thought we’d want to stay in one place for 2-3 months at a time, but it’s looking like 3-4 weeks is our sweet spot.
- Holly is the new U.S. ambassador to Chile. Seriously, people stop us all the time to ask about her. Most people haven’t heard of cairn terriers, but there are plenty of westies.
- It’s fun to have roommates while on the road. Makes for good conversation!
- The food in Chile isn’t what we expected. It’s a lot of meat and potatoes, although there’s lots of amazing produce.
- We have nothing formally booked or planned after Feb. 14 — we’re just going to figure it out as we go. Surprisingly, this does not make me nervous.
To close us out, here is a photo of me and our little ambassador who kept trying to scamper away.
Great that you are doing so well, especially as escorts of the Ambassador. I found it interesting, and not too surprising, that 3-4 weeks in a place is the sweet spot. And, I’ll bet that when you start approaching that time, you find a few ants in your shoes that make you antsy to head on. Your pictures are simply great, and it is nice indeed to see the captions. We are still on track to be in Cuenca, leaving SF on 3/4 and arriving in Cuenca a couple days later. Return is 4/1, no foolin’. Thanks for the suggestion to head there … at least I hope so.
Best,
Ben
Indeed! We definitely start to feel ants in the shoes. But 3-4 weeks is good because it gives you enough time to figure out a place and see more than just tourist sites. So great you guys are going to Cuenca! We still haven’t ruled it out — just wanted to head further south first. Let us know what you think! – Tamara