My Chilean Easter

After a beautiful day we hit the road again and alter a winding, rocky drive up the mountains we arrived at Felipe’s parent’s house in the country. It was as exactly as Felipe described it, absolutely wonderful.

There is no electricity so you have to use a generator to get light and hot water. Once the humming of the generator started you could see the cottage in all its glory. The interior was as beautiful as the exterior, it looked like it should be on location, location, location it was that good. It was filled with antiques and ornaments from all over South America. I can’t believe that I was lucky enough to experience this.

Felipe made the fire for the oven outdoors and we started to cook our dinner. I was in charge of making the pizza, okay just putting the ingredients on and Felipe made a wonderful starter consisting of shell fish. And believe it or not I ate them and they were delicious, out of their shells and everything. I know, I couldn’t believe it myself, first I get in touch with the spiders I have detested for so long and now I am eating shell fish, what ever next.

The evening finished with a spectacular view of the mountains from the moonlight and where the stars can be seen in all their glory. This is certainly a moment I will never forget.

The next morning was Easter Sunday and we had a packed day ahead of us, despite my thoughts being occupied with what my family were doing back home, enjoying the cooking of my brilliant mum, and the marks and Spencer eggs that she would have got everybody. To see the house and its surroundings at sunset was amazing. I sat on a log outside and saw the sun rise over the Chilean mountains with the Andes in the background, while humming birds surrounded me. I just wish mum and dad were here to experience it.

Felipe had to water the many fruit trees that they had in the garden and then we were off to see his horses and have lunch with the family that help look after them. One thing that hits you in Chile is the warmth of the people, especially being in Brazil where (no offence) the people are a little bit colder. As soon as we arrived in the flat countryside we were greeted by the family and their wonderful three children. We had lunch which was obviously accompanied by Chilean wine and set off to ride the horses. And what lovely horses they were. They were proper Chilean horses being ridden by real Chilean men. They had the wooden shoes as stirrups, the spiky wheel (sorry don’t know the actual word) at the back of the boots and the flat hat that they wear, I felt like I was in a movie or something. It was the funniest thing to see them ride the horses, because in Chile they ride them side ways so they can round up the cattle, it looks as if they are doing a dance when they cross their legs.

I was asked if I wanted a race, no thank you was my immediate answer and we headed back to the house for some more wine till we headed back onto the highway. Felipe had already told me that we were going to visit his friends house in Santiago as it was her birthday, so I was preparing myself for an evening of smiling and nodding continuously to conversation that I couldn’t understand. You can understand my surprise and a small dose of fear therefore, when he asked if I would like to go and see his family. Please remember that it is Easter Sunday and when I say his family I mean, cousins, uncles, aunties the whole caboodle, I could hardly say no could I. But my luck had not run out and I had one of the best Easter Sundays of my life, I was honored to meet such lovely friendly people, who made all the effort for me to speak English, and also two of his aunts lived in the states and Australia so English was not as foreign to them as I anticipated. If I couldn’t spend Easter with my family what better way then to spend it there with such loving people, it was almost like being at home.

For the final time that day we were back on the road to Santiago and once again were greeted by his best friend and her mum who were more welcoming than I could ever imagine. She had just announced she was getting married, and even though she had known me for only five minutes she invited me to her wedding. How lovely can you get?

I could hardly sleep that night due to the reflections of my weekend spinning around my mind. I had seen and done so much in one weekend, I was now looking forward to having a relaxing week in Santiago.