Curiñanco

Two weeks in Chile already! This past week, the weather has been totally gorgeous and sunny (although still really cold, since it's winter and all) and on Friday we had an excursion to the OCEAN! We went to a place called Curiñanco, where there was a gorgeous coast and a tiny rainforest that we ambled around in for a few hours. It was really, really beautiful.

After our hike through the forest, we ate lunch and our Chilean student mentors showed us how to dance the Cueca, the national dance of Chile. Chilean's independence day is on September 18th, and it is a HUGE deal, especially because this year is the bicentennial! So anyway, every year on the 18th people celebrate all day by dancing the Cueca. Like most dances, it's the story of a courtship between a persistent man and a coy woman, and they circle around until they end up together in the end. The steps are slightly modeled after a rooster and a hen. It's pretty fun to watch, and I'm sure that I'll end up doing some sort of clumsy Cueca imitation once Independence Day rolls around.

After the dancing, some of us ran around on the beach for awhile.Of course I had to take some jumping pictures.

Even as the fog rolled in, no rain! Que suerte!

Aside from having adventures on the coast, Chilean life has been really good. My Spanish is slowly improving, the flowers are blooming, etc. The only bummer is that now that school is in session I have homework. Hmph.