The last week has brought increasingly nice weather. While the afternoons have clouded over on a few days and while we have had a couple of winter weather blasts with rain and hail, the number of sunny days is on the rise. Hopefully they will begin to outnumber the overcast ones.
Temuco itself is a medium sized town of roughly 235,000 people, and while its main center does not follow any colonial design and while there are few buildings with architectural intrigue, the town is small enough for us to get most anywhere by foot. We have found a few of nice restaurants in the downtown center, including two that offer great lunch specials, complete with a soup or salad. Then there is a great pizza and pasta place near us called Madonna, and there are several more higher end establishments in our area that look promising but we have yet to try.
By and large we cook at home, and go out for drinks or splurge on delectable Onces. The Once is the Chilean mid-evening snack that usually occurs between 5 and 6 pm and comprises mostly of cookies, biscuits, cakes, or tarts and a café or tea. This is a daily ritual that should not be ignored!
Set upon the hills running along the northern side of Temuco is a nature preserve called Cerro Ñielol. It is within walking distance of the main square, and it has much of the natural flora and fauna of the area. So while the town continues to expand and grow this area will remain undeveloped. We decided that it would be fun to give you all a taste of what the town looks like from above and the two pictures below are mpg files from this park looking down on Temuco.
This first one is looking out towards the southeast and stops about ¾ of the way through town.
This second one picks up where the other left off (although it is from a slightly lower elevation) almost looking directly south and continues the sweep to the southwestern and finishes on the western side of the town.
As you can see from these short clips, green is starting to show its color all over the city, which means only one thing, Spring! The trees, bushes and flowers are beginning to bloom in every yard. We also thought it would be fun to share with you all the colors around our neighborhood. The birds, bees and spiders are more and more active everyday, and the buds brighten the houses and give off subtle fragrances that make walking on clear, dry evenings all the more pleasant.
Last Friday, after our walk to the Cerro Ñielol, we decided that there was no better way to celebrate spring’s arrival than with a trip up into the mountains to our north to get one last blast of winter! And continuing on this same line of reasoning we figured that the best way to pay our respects for our love of warmth was to take a thermal bath. So we bought two seats on the Saturday bus past Curacautin to Manzanar. With just over 120,000 pesos in our pockets, we thought we could have a fun mini weekend get away and thermal bath extravaganza.
Saturday couldn’t have been a nicer day. Again, clear skies and on the way north we saw 4 volcanoes that are within view of the National Highway 5 (Pan American Highway) in the Temuco area. They are Volcan Llaima (to the east), Volcan Lonquimay and Volcan Tolhuaca (to the north, northeast), and Volcan Villarica (to the east, southeast). They are all breathtaking, but we don’t have any pictures because they would have been of mostly mud and dirt on a bus window.
Manzanar is a small village along a road that eventually takes you to Argentina. Our hosteria (Abarzua) was a small place run by an 80-year-old woman and her assistant/waitress/room cleaner/fire tender, Antonia. For those of you who know Faulty Towers, think of a female Manuel with a sense of humor and bright smile. The owner and Antonia would always try to speak with me in Spanish (even though we told them I don't speak Spanish) and I would just look at them and point to Sarah and they would continue on with their questioning if we wanted more bread or more soup or informing us to the fact that the lunch we ate was not their normal lunch and that there was a cake cooking and would we like some for our Once...
The hosteria has a wonderful old time feel with a large dining room, old pictures on the wall and very soft beds. On our arrival, we were the only guests there and it seemed as though we had landed at a place that was a has been. But then between 9 and 10 pm another 18 people had arrived, two groups of 9. One group was on their way to the ski slopes and the other was a group of old friends who had been coming up to this area from Viña del Mar since the early 1960s. The two groups brought out the rustic, well lived in feel of the Abarzua and the dining room and guest rooms upstairs grew vibrant and warm.
Sunday was another overcast, rainy day but we decided to head down to the pools when the wind and rain let up. The thermal pools are about one kilometer down the road from the hosteria. They are owned and operated by the Manzanar Hotel.
We bought two day passes which included a five course lunch and once our toes touched the water we knew we had made the right decision. These thermal hot springs were divine and the fact that it was cold, rainy and windy made them all the more luxurious. The sun finally came out during lunch and our walk back to the hosteria was refreshing and brisk with clear evening skies.
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