Sightseeing in Chile

Wow, time for another blog post already!  Here’s hoping everyone had a great week and you are ready for more news from Rancagua, Chile. 

This week our daughter is visiting from Utah.  It has been so great to have her here.  She has been a great help and is wonderful to visit with. The missionaries have enjoyed meeting her and she has been a  great sport about attempting to speak Spanish with them.   In honor of her visit, since we did a little sightseeing this week and will do a little more next week, I would like to share a little about this beautiful part of the world.

Chile has been called the finger of South America since it is so long and skinny.  The Andes form an impressive border with Argentina on one side and a coastal mountain range follows the coastline down the other.  We live in the central part or the agricultural hub of the country.  We aren’t a tourist destination but I think it is beautiful, with acres and acres of grape vines and corn fields marching right up to the mountains. 

San Fernando has a great museum with many artifacts both prehistoric and modern from Chile and the surrounding region.  The museum also has a fascinating display about the recent rescue of the trapped miners from a few years ago.  Nearby is a lovely restaurant that serves excellent Italian food.  Another place we visited this week is called Siete Tazas: named because of a series a seven waterfalls that each empty into a bowl shaped rock formation.  It is gorgeous along with another nearby waterfall called Bridal Veil (sound familiar Utah residents?) 

Chileans love to camp which is apparent because of the many campgrounds and places to rent cabanas which we have seen.  We visited a little town on the ocean called Pichilemu where the beach has very fine, brownish black sand and big enough waves for surfers.  Since this is the summer vacation from school the beach was crowded with families and brightly colored shade shelters.  Another city by the sea is Valparaiso which is adjacent to Viña del Mar, both of which are definitely  on the tourist circuit.  We are looking forward to seeing them and Santiago this week and learning more about this wonderful country in which we live.

Pichilemu

Siete Tazas

Vino Bello restaurant