Travelog for: Ulani

Hello mum!!

I made it to Chile!

I was sitting as every day of the past month inside my envelope, when I heard some noise and suddenly I had three faces staring directly at me! One of them with big scissors in hand, which I must admit wasn't a very good first impression, but then I realized they were to open my envelope, so it was ok



I got out and they came to greet me nicely!



I met Pato, my new TV host And the guys behind us are Ducky and Ping!



I gave Leslie the postcard I brought her and she loved it!



Then I went to look out the window to see what kind of place I just arrived to! All I see is that we are at the very edge of the city and that there's a lot of smoke...
I still haven't explored around but one thing I can tell you, it is cold here!



Later Pato invited me for a cup of hot chocolate and we talked a lot, he's a very nice host!



I hope I can go explore around soon!

Hugs from the most southern country in the world!

Ulani

Hi mummy!

First of all I must apologize for the delay in my updates! We have been all very busy here helping Leslie with her studies... exams are really hard, I can tell by her face!

I visited the most important hill in Temuco, Ñielol hill.
By the way, I like the way the "Ñ" letter sounds, it's somewhat between N and I

Some people say that Ñielol hill is an extinct volcano I hope it isn't, because I would not like to see it in action since it's right next to the city!

We went up (by car - we were feeling a little lazy) to the main viewpoint from where we could see a big part of the city!



This is Temuco to the south



Then we moved to another part of the hill to see these famous Mapuche totems!



They are called Chemamulls, which in Mapudungún (Mapuche language) means "wooden people", and they are 4 meters tall!



This tree behind us is the ''Patagüa'', the tree under which, spanish and mapuches (the local aborigins) signed a peace treaty in 1881, after 300 years of war.
It's a very old an important tree!
I wish it could talk and tell me its stories!!



I wonder how is summer now at home... here it's winter and all trees have lost their leaves, but it looks beautiful against the blue sky, doesn't it?



When sunset time came, we went to a lower view point to enjoy the beautiful orange colours in the sky



Aahhh... beautiful



Hope to write again soon, and I'm sorry for leaving you with no news for so long...
Weather is slowly getting nicer here, so we are going to be able to go out more and take photos

Love!
Bye bye

¡Hola mamá! ¿Cómo estás?

Spring is almost here and you can already feel it in the air

The days are getting slowly nicer and today finally Chile changed to Daylight Saving Time! That means one more hour of daylight everyday, woohoo!

But the photos you're going to see now are from a not so nice day strictly talking about the weather of course, because it was nice for me anyway!

One weekend we traveled to stay at my hosts' summerhouse by the sea in the small fishing village of Queule
This is the view from the deck... I must say on a sunny day it looks a lot better, but this is still nice, isn't it? 



I can tell my hosts like plants a lot! They're almost devouring the deck!



And in the garden I saw this native tree called Palmilla, nice nice.



After lunch we started walking to the beach, so first we had to go down to the town...



I saw many old fishing boats and nets by the water



And this is the main dock of the town.



Even though the day was very cloudy I think the landscape looked still very nice



To get to the beach you have to walk for about 30 minutes through a path on a hill...



There you can see the river mouth of Queule river...



Leslie told me that this little dock and many others were completely destroyed by the 2010 tsunami



And finally after doing some great leg exercise through the hill, we arrived at Ronca beach!
It's called Ronca because that means "snore" in spanish, and the waves here do make a loud noise!



We crossed a small forest before reaching the sand...



And here we are! Maybe it wasn't the sunny beach day that one could expect, but it was still very nice!



And here's me keeping track on the sand



Nos vemos!
Saludos!

Ulani

Hi my dear mum!

After almost three months since the last time I wrote, we are finally free here. Leslie is finally done with her exams and we are all happy that the books are gone from the desk and the tables and couch and everywhere!
All this time we've been peretty much all the time bored sitting and waiting for something exciting to happen, but it didn't until now...

So now im going to show you a nice trip that we made to a city five hours south called Puerto Montt
By the way, maybe you'll notice why Puerto Montt is known for having a permanent grey sky...



Look at that poor skinny horse with a tumbril



We walked around the city until we found the main church of Puerto Montt, can you guess what the dome is made of? it's made out of copper because Chile is the biggest copper exporter in the world



And this is the main square of the city



After a while walking we sat down to rest in these seats with nice designs on our backs



These are Chilco flowers, i've seen some in Leslie's garden



Then after resting we walked for a while through the shore





This couple is very famous, they're called "sentados frente al mar" (seated by the sea). There is a song called Puerto Montt and it tells the story of these two lovers you can listen to it here



In the afternoon we did the church trail, a road full of typical churches through the slope of the hills next to the water, very beautiful!

So first we started getting away from the city to the east



And this is the first church we saw. I learned that all the churches around here are built with tiles



This one has a few tiles below the roof, can you see them?















We passed through a small town





In this area there are many many creeks and waterfalls coming from the mountain range to the sea, and we stopped at one



Aahhh the beautiful sound of the water 



And this is the last church of the trail, it was in a very small village



so we stopped there to eat some yummy empanadas, the chilean national food
very yummy by the way!



I hope you liked the churches mum as much as I did!
Many kisses from the warm spring!

Ulani

Our second day in Puerto Montt started with a bright warm sun over out heads, temperature quite nice and the breeze too... we had to go out to explore as soon as possible, so we got on the car and drove west to a small town called Maullín



But in Maullín there was nothing to see exept the main church, so we kept on driving south....







...Until we reached the next town, Carelmapu

Our good tourit guide Pato taught us that the word Carelmapu is in Mapudungún language, the language of the Mapuche people, the aborigins of this area, and it means Green Land... which I could see with my own eyes, it's very green around here!

We went to see the oldest church in the town, the Church of Candelaria.



It was built in 1860 and is now a National Monument



It got damaged in the big 8,8 Earthquake in 2010, so it's being repared, that's why we couldn't go peep upstairs, the ground could habe broken uder our feet!







And then we went to see the sunset at Mar Brava beach
Back there you can see an island, that is Chiloé island, the first of all the islands of the south of Chile, you can see that in my map



It was a very nice day!
I hope you're having fun at home mum!

Kisses,

Ulani

Our third day here in the south started cloudy as usual, but that didn't stop us

If you take a look at my map you can see that the area around Puerto Montt is surrounded by lakes, so today we decided to drive around them

So first we drove to a town called Llanquihue and we saw the main church



As we walked around Pato was a good tourist guide and told us about this place, he said that many many years ago german settlers came to this area around the lakes I think I wouldn't mind moving here either... the landscapes are so beautiful!



But we didn't stay in Llanquihue, but kept on driving through the road next to the lake



We found a cemetery and walked around it and the graves were all german, it felt somehow like home!
And now I seemed like the tourist guide teaching everyone what ruht in frieden means



The cemetery had a lovely view



And beautiful flowers!



Then we kept driving north... on the way there was a garden of giant tulips how beautiful!





And this was our destination, the city of Frutillar which was founded by german settlers, so it looked like a little germany german architecture, signs, people and whatnot, very nice!
Here I'm outside the theater which is very famous, it's called Teatro del Lago "theater of the lake", very appropiate name, don't you think so?



Frutillar is a famous holiday spot for tourists, people from all over the world come to this beach in summer (and not only people but also toyvoyagers)



And we found a church so went inside to peep luckily there was no one inside so we didn't have to stay as silent or quiet



And this was our last day in Puerto Montt...
I hope you liked our trip At least I loved it!

Hugs!
Ulani

Hola desde Chile!

Summer is almost here so we decided to spend the weekend in the summerhouse near the beach, although the forecast said it wasn't going to be a very summerlike weekend...



On the way there I could see some great views of the pacific shores 



Once we got in the summerhouse we couldn't go to the beach, so we stayed in the garden, and since it's the end of spring all the flowers are in their best time!




This nice little plant is called Murtilla, it's endemic to southern Chile and very yummy I heard some good drinks can be made out of it!



This plant I'm standing on is a Chilco, also endemic to southern South America



...and from what I saw I can tell it's one of the bees' favourite meal!



...We spent the rest of the day wandering around the garden because the weather didn't allow us to go to the beach



So I had fun watching the life in the garden from closely







The sun only came out for a while and then it all got cloudy again...



Now I'm back in Temuco writing and surfing the internet!

Hugs!
Ulani

This was a great day!
We went to explore the center of Temuco city... and what's the first thing I see? A llama in front of me! wow!



I'm not sure who was surprised the most... me to see a llama in the middle of the street or her to see a small sized purple sheep... I think we were both wondering whether we'd gone crazy at least I was.



After the brief encounter with the llama we moved on and kept exploring around and I found myself in one of the main squares of Temuco, called Plaza de Armas



This monument in the middle of the square shows Mapuches and spanish conquerors.



There was a man playing the guitar... yeah... I like this place



Then we headed to the crafts market to see some Mapuche handicrafts



These drums are called Kultrún and are played in mapuche rituals and ceremonies. I wonder what could happen if I play one, maybe I could make it rain



These trumpet-shaped horns are Trutrucas



This giant guy is an Indio Pícaro, a wooden figure of a mapuche man... I really hope they don't look like this in person!



Then we went into a store and I saw mapuche jewelry made of silver, the big ones are called Trapelakucha and mark status among mapuche women



And these are mapuche knittings, nice designs!



So after all I learned I can now say that this woman in the picture is playing Kultrún while wearing a Trapelakucha



Nice day and I learned a lot!
...and you don't meet llamas in the street everyday, so it was a very special day!

Ulani

Summer so far doesn't really look like it, the sky has been mostly grey and there have been some rainy days

Today we made a trip to the mountain range near the argentinian border



As we got closer some nice wild flowers appeared by the road, I think I match really well between them 





And closer we found Araucarias, the national chilean tree!









Ouch! 



Soon we started noticing the height we were at



And we kept going up...
The view was really beautiful from up here!



And the wind was very cold, but fresh mountain air... ahhh





It was a very very nice day!
Now we are preparing for christmas
I'll write again soon
Bye bye

Hohoho!

Yesterday we went with Leslie to finish her last minute christmas shopping and saw this giant beautiful tree at the mall



And later in the night we celebrated Christmas Eve
The tree looked beautiful and dinner was yummy, it was a perfect night! By the way, my first christmas in summer which means... Mission accomplished!



Merry christmas everyone!
Ulani

We went to spend New Year's day to a beach near a little town called Puerto Saavedra by the sea



When we got there we climbed a big hill to take a look at the beach from above



Ahhh, how beautiful





Then we went back down to enjoy the sand and the sea



That hill back there is the one we climbed



It was a very nice day!

We have been spending the holidays in Queule, the place is very nice but the internet very bad. The weather has been perfect  I love this place!

We have been quite disconected the last few days, but now we are in Temuco, but not for long... tomorrow we go back to the beach



On the way to the city I saw some nice landscapes...



...and back at home there was a surprise waiting for us!

Thank you very much mum, both Leslie and I loved it 
What a lovely detail, and the cookies + wine... hmmmmm
Here are some photos of me unpacking... I did all the job by my self!
The frog is the cutest thing ever - Leslie says you should have seen her smile when she saw it!

Thank you very much again!
Hugs!
Ulani

Hi mum,

I want to show you my last photos of Chile, of a place called Caburgua, take a look



These two waterfalls are called "Eyes of Caburgua" because someone thought that they look like eyes... hmm, it must have been someone with a lot of imagination



This lagoon is called, surprinsingly, Blue Lagoon
It had a very intense blue color and looked so calm and pretty that we were all dying to go swim in there, but sadly it is forbidden.
There are some legends about this lagoon being hipnotic and I believe they might be true 



And these last photos are from another small trip around the shore somewhat near the city on a nice sunny day





What a beautiful place!

This is the day I left Chile, before going to the post office, I accompanied Leslie to her university and I could see this view out of a window



And this is where I embarked...



I liked Chile very much, I hope you did too mum!

Bye bye!