Travelog for: Claire Tamias

We went to the town to see the boats and everything closer, the weather was really nice! 




Many of these boats were destroyed by the tsunami in february 2010, and there are still some traces of it.

Later we headed to ''Agua de las Niñas'' beach, which in english would be ''girls' water''
We passed through this viewpoint called ''El Tope''
From here you can see the whole fishing village.



That beach is called ''La herradura'' (the horseshoe) because of its shape, oh, by the way, it's an island.




...then we kept walking...



I found this dock, Leslie told me it was destroyed by the tsunami



This is called lion rock, can you guess why? 




Time for a little rest 



This is Ronca beach, ronca means snore. It's called like that because of the loud sound of its waves.











We arrived! This is Agua de las Niñas beach!




Look what I found!! 



A jellyfish!! 









I found  this very weird rock full of wholes, what could have made them?





After today, I really...



...Even so much, that I started looking for a place to live 






After all that, we went back to the house, very tired of course.

Today we are going back to Temuco, I enjoyed a lot this weekend here!
I made a few last shots from the main dock 

It's beautiful to see how all the trees are blooming at last after the cold winter! Spring started around 20 days ago and the weather is nice almost everyday! 

We visited the central market of the city. There were lots of artisans in their stands selling typical stuff.

These are kultrunes, they're drums from the Mapuche culture.



More Mapuche instruments.



These are Mapuche jewelry pieces. The biggest ones are ''trapelakuchas'', they are made of silver and are very expensive.





This is a huge ''indio pícaro''. Do you remember them?

Quote:

The Indio Pícaro is a traditional wooden statuette of a Mapuche Indian with a long penis. It is found in traditional artisan shops in south-central Chile. It is usually made of wood, used primarily as decoration or for jokes. It consists of an image of a traditionally dressed Mapuche painted with a broad smile that, when lifted, shows an erect penis.

We watched the rescue of the 33 miners who were trapped for 69 days 700 meters underground in a mine in the north of Chile.
The rescue process lasted 22 hours and 30 minutes.





I have to admit I dropped a couple of tears watching them hug their relatives again.
Now they are all safe with their families again!

We went to Ñielol Hill, a natural monument.
It has a huge historic meaning, because here, chileans and mapuches established peace, in 1881, after 3 centuries of war.



There were super huge trees!



This is the Patagua tree, here is where spanish and mapuches established peace. Also, it seemed like a nice place to stay 




These 4 meters tall mapuche totems are called chemamüll, they represent the family.







This tree is a Notro, they have these cute little red flowers



This is the view of Temuco from the summit of Ñielol hill.




I read the descriptions of some trees, they were in braille as well! 




There was a little museum, so we went in



These things are Piñones, they are the seed of araucarias, the national tree.

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OMG 



I made a new friend a big rodent just like me, called Coipo.
It's an own specie of rodent of South America.






WOW, this one IS important! It is a Cóndor, the chilean national bird.
It is the biggest flying bird in the world!

Quote:

The Andean Condor's wingspan, ranges from 280 to 320 cm (9.2 to 10.5 ft). It is heavy, reaching a weight of 11 to 15 kg (24 to 33 lb) for males and 6 to 14 kg (13 to 31 lb) for females. Overall length can range from 102 to 135 cm (40 to 53 in).

This is a map of The Araucanía region. By the way, Chile is divided in 15 regions, La Araucanía is the 9th of them.



After the museum we kept walking through the forest.





Look at this weird tree!!

We went to the main cementery of the city which was opened in 1897.











This place is for policemen who died working.







After the cementery we went to a memorial park, which is in honor to all the people who died in the militar dictatorship in 1973.



This stree symbolizes the strenght of life.



On this wall there are the names of some of the missing and dead people.



Néstor Gallardo Agüero is Leslie's relative.

NO PARKING sign... it looks weird in spanish, don't you think so? 

We went for a walk around the house. Did I ever mention that the house is just 5 houses away from the very end of the city? so you just cross the street and youre in the country side

Heading south from the house I found this nice lagoon, sadly the day was kinda rainy, so we had to go back pretty soon and couldnt go further.

We visited the cementery again, but this time I focused on the flowers, they were absolutely beautiful! 

Mum!! Today Leslie recieved the presents you sent her!!
You should have seen her face when she opened the envelope! haha
She was more than happy! 

I made a new friend! Her name is Sky and she's staying over for a month since her mum is traveling.
We spend the whole day talking and playing, and even eating together

We visited a famous train museum Pablo Neruda.
Sadly we couldn't go in to where the main trains are, because the structure is damaged since the earthquake in february and it's dangerous to go in, so that part is closed 
This is a part of the wall...



Do you know the onomatopoeia for the sound of trains in spanish?
well, i do, it's ''chucu chucu'' lol



This is where they loaded charcoal.



This one was the presidential train many years ago.









There were poems carved on copper that Pablo Neruda wrote to the trains.