ON THE PACIFIC COAST AT PICHILEMU

The drive from Santiago to the coast of the South Pacific went smoothly - Andres and I started out heading southward on Ruta 5, the Carretera Panamericana, eventually torning westward on two-lane paved roads that led through the Chilean towns of Peumo, Pichidegua and Marchihue before our arrival at Pichilemu, a small city with perhaps 13,000 inhabitants.  Since I have stayed here before, and because I´d enjoyed and appreciated my old accomodations at Pichilemu´s Hotel Asthur, I recommended this quiet and comfortable 2-star hotel to Andres.  Now we have been here for two nights, and plan to stay again tonight before heading out tomorrow for a still undetermined destination where we will locate for our last three nights before making our return to Santiago on the 13th - to settle in and make preparations for my return flight to the USA on the 14th (arriving in Salt Lake City on March 15th).

For today´s post, I am using photos exclusively taken by Andres.  The above image shows me out on the balcony on the second floor of Hotel Asthur, where Andres and I occupy two separate rooms.  The view from the balcony is quite nice - to the left, one can see the wide expanse of the black sand beach; while to the right one can see the northern part of the town with the surrounding hills in the distance, as shown in the following image:

Pichilemu is known as the Chilean "capitol of surfing," and here they hold the annual Campeonato Internacional de Surf between October and December.  And even though the competitive season here is over, there are still plenty of surfers in town.  Of course, they do a lot of surfing at the westernmost point along the city´s principal beach, but the surf´s even better about 6 km south of town at a place called Punta de Lobos, where the strong left swells can carry the more ambitious surfers quite a long ways.

Yesterday Andres and I visited Punta de Lobos, and that is where the following pictures were taken:

Yesterday was cloudy, so the above images might seem a little grey; regardless, they should give you a little idea of things here.  Today we might be going a bit further southward, to a small settlement known as Cahuil, also on the coast about 12 km south of here.  Andres is still lusting after finding fossils, and he says that there are supposedly good places to look for that sort of thing in the vicinity of that village.  It is also where there are some wetlands present along the so-named Nilahue Estuary and the Laguna de Cahuil, which would make for some decent viewing of bird populations.  Cahuil is a small place with a population of around 400 or 500 people, many of whom work as fishermen or in sea salt extraction at the salt ponds located a bit up the estuary.

Later on this evening Andres is going to give me lessons on how to prepare Pisco Sour.  Although I already know how to prepare this mixed drink, a lesson from an expert still won´t hurt; and it will give me cause to bring some pisco back with me when I fly home...