August- Week 1- Chile, Day 5 (The Coast)

Monday morning, we took our time in the morning and left the house around 10:45.  We first drove to the coastal city of San Antonio and spent a little time on the beach.

My cute parents!

We each took a turn touching the FREEZING Pacific Ocean.  

 Mickelle only put her finger in.  :)  

I needed a little help because walking on the rocks in bare feet was kinda painful.  

 Dan was tempting fate the whole time. 

 

I think he went too far in to begin with.  Then, while posing for a nice picture... (notice the BIG wave coming behind him?)

 BAM!  Sorry honey!  None of us gave him a warning or anything.  To be honest, I had just taken the photo above and was checking to see if it turned out ok.  My sister snapped this one below!  

Run away! 

The sandy part of the beach was farther from the water.  These rocks were pretty to look at, but tough to walk on.  

 Dan and Justin enjoyed climbing on these big boys too.  

 Romance ;)

A nice family shot thanks to a well positioned rock and self-timer.  :)

A little look at one of the beach houses right on the water.  

 Heading back to the car.  Everybody wave! :) 

Then we headed to the San Antonio Port to see the fish market, boats, and boardwalk.  

For some reason, there were no fish that day.  But the smell was sure still there. 

We did see this fish meat.  Not sure what it was.  

 The boardwalk also had these big sea lions! 

  

Certain members in the group wanted to see how close they could get.  No one was harmed. ;) 

Lots of pelicans too.  

Another interesting thing about Chile is there are stray dogs EVERYWHERE!  They never bark or sniff you.  They're very docile and don't seem to acknowledge humans much at all.  We're pretty sure our kids may have been cured of their fear of dogs had they come with us.  

 Along the boardwalk, there was a musician selling his album, so Dan and I did a little spontaneous dancing and got lots of weird looks, but smiles too. :) 

We went into the nearby mall for lunch at the food court and tried empanadas for the THIRD time.  Each time, they were so different but Dan and I agreed the empanadas made by our sister-in-law (from Argentina) are way better. :)  

 I also think this trip would have taught my kids that writing on walls is "ok."  There was graffiti everywhere.  

The rest of the afternoon/evening was a driving tour of two more coastal cities.  First, Valparaiso.  We drove down really steep streets where the houses were right on top of each other.  There was a devastating fire a year ago that destroyed hundreds of homes. 

Hard to tell, but the picture below is a unique piece of art. Cars hanging out to dry and being held up by clothespins.

We also drove to the beach there.  Such pretty rocks/cliffs! 

 We saw this cool cemetery with "filing cabinet" style graves.  

 And there was a LIGHTHOUSE!!  

 Last, we drove to Vina del Mar and quickly saw (no pictures) a real working clock. The face and numbers were comprised solely of flowers.  

We also caught this gorgeous sunset of Vina del Mar. 

Valparaiso

On the way home we stopped in a nearby city called Melipella to eat at my parents' favorite Chinese Restaurant, Jian Dong. Since the dinner rush is around 9:30-10 pm, we had the place to ourselves.

 

**I don't think I ever felt hungry on this trip.  We really only had two meals a day, but I always felt full!