Dec. 11th -On to Cajon del Maipo!

Glorious news! Upon waking, Carrie has declared herself at 85% of normality. After a modest breakfast we head up the coast to Vina Del Mar, a very cute suburb of Valpariso that reminds everyone very much of Florida ("Del Boca Vista " jokes were made with some regularity).








The good news continues as we finally find a bank that will accept our ATM card ( Banco Scotia) We walk through the busy streets and enjoy some falafel and schwarma at the Jerusalem Cafe, a recommended middle eastern eatery. There was a park on the beach with really cool trees - see photo. No idea what kind of trees.






We then bust out of Florida and proceed to our cabin in the Cajon del Maipo (Maipo Canyon), which is about an hour and half to the southeast of Santiago, for those of you following along on the map. Our cabin is located at a eco-resort entitled Cascada de las Animas, which translates to Waterfall of the Spirit. The resort itself is gorgeous, with all of the structures comprised of natural materials. We check into our cute little cabin and the four of us take off for the 30 minute hike to the base of the namesake waterfall. We unfotunately came away with no good photos of the cabins.


The trail is somewhat steep in places but we soon we are rewarded with stunning views of the nearby Andes and the waterfall itself. We cracked open the bottle of vino we had brought along and enjoyed a cup while watching two Chileans rappel down the waterfall right before us. Rich and Dave took a quick dip in the frigid yet refreshing water, and we headed on back down the trail. We ate dinner that evening at the absolutely gorgeous open air restaurant at the resort, with the boys enjoying some superb salmon in yellow curry and the girls loving their home made ravioli.
Later, Betsy made the brave move of allowing Carrie to dye her hair. It had been 6 weeks since the last Boston dye job and the two-tone look isn´t in in Chile. It should have turned out ok except that Betsy had only bought about half as much dye as needed. So, for the next couple days she had the SUPER two-tone look until we found more of the same dye and dyed again in Santa Cruz. Finally, Carrie kicked everyone´s hieneys in some Boggle followed by some gin rummy, with everyone washed down with more vino tinto (red wine). Off to bed for a big day to follow!