Happy holidays!

The Saturday before Christmas Jason and I went to el Santuario de la Naturaleza Yerba Loca with other students from Escuela Bellavista. It's only 90 minutes of steep winding roads away from Santiago, and scenery on the 7km round trip hike was beautiful! We tried to capture it with our camera, but as with most large landscapes, the reality was far more impressive. Still, there's enough here for those of you planning to visit Chile to decide whether Yerba Loca should be a destination. The landscape itself is easy to navigate, but the altitude (we reached 2,080m) made the hike more tiring (for me) and the sun far stronger (for Jason, who is still peeling off pieces of his head) than expected.


Chileans seem to celebrate Christmas more on the eve before than on Christmas Day. We purchased small gifts (regalitos) for the family that operates the hostel we called home during our first month in Chile, and when we delivered them Sunday night discovered that they were already in full-blown party mode. The next day we invited EEUU and TeachingChile coworkers Matt and Jordan to join us for a (non)traditional Christmas grill. After a few false starts with the coals, everything went well, and I think we all enjoyed the holiday a little more because we were able to share it.

Jennifer