Halloween and Back Road Adventures!

Hola!  Another month races by, full of challenges and adventures!  First, I'm going to take you back to Halloween. Yes, they do celebrate in much the same way we do in the US but it's not quite as big, yet.  Of course being the North Americans we are we just knocked on anyone's door.  We discovered this had mixed results.  Not everyone participates, about 50% I'd say.  However, those who do participate are very generous with their candy and the girls still have 1/2 a plastic pumpkin full of suckers and taffy (chocolate was not common, bummer!).

Mabel with her Zapillo squash (a little tougher than a pumpkin)

The finished Jack-O-Lanterns! (very uncommon here)

El Raton at school

Mabel's teachers, Sylvie and AnnaMarie.

Our beautiful abeja and raton.

OK, so now were onto November.  The weather is typical spring weather by the ocean, one day it's beautiful and in the 70's and the next it can be cool and rainy.  So far we've been very lucky and the sunny days are out numbering the rainy ones. 

Early in November we took a drive down to Parque Nacional Naheulbuta.  The drive to the park included some time on a dirt road which didn't worry us, due to our experience on the back roads of Montana but we happen to take a wrong turn... The dirt road section turned into over an hour of dodging huge logging trucks and putting the car in first gear to make it up the steep sections.  Needless to say we made it and were treated to quite a nice hike in one of the only sanctuaries for araucaria trees, also known as "monkey puzzle" trees due to their strange bark.  It was like entering an enchanted forest, really.

 This park is a little south of Concepcion, inland from the coast and high up in the coastal range.  It was amazing to see some of the native plants and animals (mostly birds).

These are the branches and leaves of the very strange Araucaria tree.

The "monkey puzzle" bark.

Araucaria trees

One of the trees was over 2000 years old and still alive.  These trees remind me of something Dr. Seuss might come up with.  As you can see they don't have any branches down low and their leaves grow in a pattern and texture something like a long artichoke, if you can imagine that.

Standing inside a tree that was born close to when Christ was born!

As we walked along the loop trail we were surprised by one of its inhabitants, a tarantula!  After the initial (and very healthy) shock and fear faded we stopped long enough to study these slow moving, hairy creatures.  Ella actually ended up sitting down next to one by accident, sort of like little Miss Muffit.

The largest one was the size of my open hand!

Can you see the face? 

Some of the trees actually had faces in their bark.  It was easy to imagine the whole forest coming alive at night and slowly dancing around!









After walking quite a ways we were treated to a hike up onto some large rocks and a great view of the valley below!

A troll bench made from old moss covered logs.

Stairs up to the top of the rocks.

Almost at the top!

Ella looking out over the valley.

It was fun to see a type of Spanish moss growing on the trees.  It reminded us a lot of the moss we see in Montana.

Looks like Mabel needs to wash behind her ears!

Along the way we kept hearing very noisy birds.  Finally we were able to see a couple of the different types.  Unfortunately I wasn't able to get a good picture of the parrots that were migrating through!

Red headed woodpecker.

So the day passed by wonderfully and we survived the large spiders and Ent type trees (from the Lord of the Rings).

I hope all is well with everyone this season.  We love receiving the mail and packages. Something always arrives just when we are missing home the most.  This trip would be much more difficult if we didn't have friends like you to help us through.  Thank you!