Felicidad en Rabuco

Felicidad! n. happiness "fell-ee-see-dahd"

Moving on from a rather sad post, I have yet to fill you in on the fun trip I took last weekend to Rabuco, Chile. Out in the countryside a bit over an hour away from Viña del Mar, we were surrounded by huge cerros (or "mountains" as someone in Ohio would call them) and nestled into a valley of farmland. The farm we spent the day at is owned and run by a family originally from Santiago who had enough of the smog and bustle and decided to get back to nature. They raise goats, wild flowers, horses, and fruit (probably more, but that's what we had time to see!). They even had a litter of puppies running around and offered them to us for free...sadly I couldn't take one.

Naranjal 

The farm house had an open air kitchen as well as a yard with gazebos, pool, and surround sound. (I guess they couldn't leave all of Santiago's luxuries behind). With Fiestas Patrias coming this weekend (Chile takes an entire week off to celebrate Independence Day on September 18th), we were taught how to make empanadas from scratch by a chef and as were toured the naranjals (orange groves) and acres of land, the chef continued to cook a feast for us upon our return.

Cueca profesional

The naranjals were unlike anything I would have expected in Chile during the winter. Row upon row of ripe oranges hanging from trees, ready to be snatched by hungry gringos on their long tour of the farm. I probably ate four, even bringing one home for my host mom. We also were taken out to see the horses and the unripe avocados and plums. Once back at the farmhouse, our chef had prepared a smorgasbord of empanadas, fresh pan (bread), chicken from the stone oven, quiche, rice, avocado and tomato salad, and potato salad (actually very common here). For desert we had fruit salad (also very common) and later raspberry and apple pie as well as galletas (cookies). By the end all of us were laying on the grass, too full to move, think, or speak.

Campeonato de Cueca

After lunch, we were lucky to see professional cueca (national dance of Chile) in full costume as we digested. It's a very coquettish dance with handkerchiefs and lots of circling around one another. Once able to move, we had to learn the cueca ourselves. Fortunately, I'd already gone to two cueca lessons and wasn't completely lost, but sadly my partner and I did not advance to the next round of our gringo championships (four rounds in total, the winners received a handkerchief and tiny hat ornament...which were of course immediately worn as real hats). To complete our day of pre-Fiestas Patrias activities, we all played "Chilean" games, aka sack races, egg on a spoon races, and 3-legged races. My team won two of the events, and two lollipops as a result. The only difference between the Chilean version of these games is that the losers for once did not merit their own lollipops and were left prize-less.
A very successful and full day indeed. Pun intended.

Ah before I forget! I have officially experienced 7 temblores (tremors) and 1 terremoto (earthquake) by US standards. Chileans, however, just shake their heads at correct me, "No, 8 temblores." At four AM two nights ago we experienced a 5.9 magnitude "tremor" that was strong enough to wake nearly everyone, yet I for once barely noticed it and was more aware of the fact that my host mom opened my door to see if I was awake and the light woke me up. No damage was done. In the United States the press would be having a field day, but I heard nothing about it on the morning news. To put it into perspective, the recent East Coast Earthquake in the USA was just a 5.8 on the richter scale.