We spent last night in Siete Tazas, a park about three hours south of Santiago. It’s named after a series of seven waterfalls that look like teacups (tazas in Spanish). It took us awhile to find our campground. To be fair, it takes us a while to find anything. Without a map, GPS or cellphone we exist in a general state of winging-it. We probably take three wrong turns for every right one.

That said, it really did take us awhile to find the campground. We followed “camping” signs for almost an hour, bumping our rental car along a road that was something between a cow path and a continuous pothole. Just as my optimism was dwindling (as usual, Macky’s was inexhaustible), we found the campground. We even had enough daylight left to grill the slab of pork we had bought at a cute little butcher’s shop off the highway. If you don’t normally think of carnecerías as cute, I understand, but this one was. It was essentially one woman selling meat out of her living room. We told her that we wanted something for the parilla (grill) and she disappeared for a second, returning with what seemed to be half the pig. She hacked us off a chunk, charged us the equivalent of US three dollars and sent us on our way. It was fantastic.

Our parilla was excellent, truly a work of culinary genius. Stay tuned for our cooking show. It was even more delicious because by the time we found our campsite we were so ravenous we really could have eaten an entire pig.  Pancitos, green salad, grilled pepper and pork–the entire meal cost us about US five dollars.

Pancitos, salad and grilled pork and bell peppers. This picture doesn't do it justice.

The next morning we went for a bike ride and stumbled upon a series of waterfalls and pools that can only be described as paradise.  If you think that sounds hokey, you haven’t been there. The water was a deep turquoise and and the river wound through a tight canyon of white rock. The light reflected off the water onto the rocks, making the solid walls full of movement. It was gorgeous. At some points it was probably 20 or 30 feet deep, if not more.  The water was extremely cold, but that did not prevent us from ripping off our clothes and plunging in. We swam up the canyon for a while, sunned ourselves on warm rocks (this is why Macky is currently the hue of a par-boiled lobster) and then let the current take us back. Although the place had been deserted when we arrived, a family of four arrived while we were adventuring and set up a picnic about 10 feet away from our clothes. This was pretty awkward for us but they were unfazed by our bare gringo butts.

And now, heading south to Osorno. Updates next time we see internet.