A beautiful weekend

I am very grateful to have spent a great weekend filled with lots of beauty and hanging out by natural bodies of water.

Yesterday I went over to Rio Bueno, a neighboring town to hang out with the two volunteers who are there. We spent an enjoyable day by the "Good River" (Rio Bueno, which also runs through La Unión, but the part that runs through Rio Bueno is better) admiring it's crystal clear water, skipping rocks, and eating lots of blackberries from the bushes that grow all around. I decided that it's definitely a good river, the water is so clean (a happy and refreshing sight after looking at the terribly polluted Mapocho river in Santiago), if you watch long enough, you can see playful fish sticking their heads out of the water, and the river is surrounded by all kinds of wonderful greenery. There is this one plant with huge leaves, it looks like something you would find in a jungle; it's name translates to "dinosaur plant", a name I find to be very fitting. Another wonderful thing about my time in Rio Bueno: while we were walking around the town, we saw an adorable, abnormally round puppy and we stopped to play with her. Then another adorable puppy appeared, then another! We spent a good fifteen minutes running around with the puppies, picking them up, and letting them nip at us. It was great. I forgot how joyful it is to be around puppies.

Today my family took me to Frutillar, a beautiful lake town a bit south of here, one of the places where my parents hope to live in someday. This was my first time visiting Frutillar, and I can see why my parents love it so much. The lake is gorgeous, and the town is precious with a heavy German influence architecturally. The weather today was absolutely perfect, a lovely fall day with the right amount of wind, just brisk enough to make a coffee consumed from a cafe with a view of the lake especially enjoyable. We brought back some delicious kuchen with us, a German dessert which is quite popular here in the south of Chile.

This was the kind of weekend where more than once I found myself thinking about how great life is. Hopefully my good spirits will carry on through the week. Check out how lovely Frutillar is!

This is technically not Frutillar, but taken at Puerto Octay, a nearby town we stopped at for the view on our way home.

Puerto Octay

A volcano peaking out from behind the clouds.

I like this tree even if it is dead. This is the beach at Frutillar.

The lake from Frutillar. On the other side of those mountains is Argentina.

Frutillar. Leaves changing colors, one reason why fall is my favorite time of the year.

Lovely Frutillar.

This is the Music Theater of Frutillar, a place that has a lot of influence in the town, making Frutillar a place that has a lot of great cultural events to offer, even though it is a small town surrounded by farmland.