Chile: Mostly Boco

I should have shot better scale images before we started the wine tour but this is a quick one of the huge pots outside the second winery we visited after the conference ended. I love huge pots!

After we all returned to Santiago, we went to a different neighborhood to a Japanese restaurant run by a Korean owner who invented this dessert. The meal was exactly what I needed: raw fish ending with spicy Korean soup.

After all the joint adventures with the international group of scholars, I checked out of the hotel and headed to Carolina's place, so that we could travel via metro and bus to Boco, an area northwest of Santiago but not too far, close to Valparaíso on the ocean but inland. Her dear friend from her childhood Lorena lives there with her husband Mike, the former an architect and the latter an artist. This is his studio that they built just across from their home.

Here's Mike! His mother is Chilean and father English and he has spent time in both countries and has been busy not just with painting but sculpture and even paper cutting.

After a studio tour, we walked through the gardens and avocado farm. The air was fragrant EVERYWHERE.

Carolina and Lorena

I've never really seen an avocado tree, and suddenly I was seeing an entire plot of them. They were all over the place and we picked some from the ground (that rodents and dogs had NOT already gotten to) to take home.

Prickly pear, which has delicious fruit (that the hotel served every morning, mmm!).

A mysterious hole in the ground that just showed up one day a few years ago on the family property.

 Poppies!

We were almost back when we saw a neighbor driving back from his morning catch at the sea.

These were wonderful, too, a plant that acts like legos.

Their home was STUNNING but I didn't want to be a gawking guest so I didn't take pictures. She's quite an architect. This was one section of their library and I found Patti Smith's Just Kids, so I spent the weekend (when I wasn't socializing with the family and their family and friends who visited, and when I wasn't eating massive amounts of wonderful home-cooked food) reading peacefully and taking long siestas.

More Chile pictures here!