We left Valparaiso and headed South to Isla Negra, the most ecclectic and favorite of all Pablo Neruda's homes. I am begining to feel that we are on the Pablo Tour since we've seen and heard so much of him in our short time here in Chile.
The road to the small coastal city was incredibly poor- it reminded me of going to my Aunt Annie and Uncle John's house in the mountains. The road was unpaved, it wound back and forth along the coastal hills, and we were all feeling a bit sick by the time we arrived at Neruda's house. Isla Negra was much more beautiful than San Sebastiana (the house in Valparaiso) and had much more interesting things inside of it. Neruda's favorite collections were housed in rooms he added on as needed, and the most impressive collections were mermaids from the bows of ships, glass bottles in his bar, and butterflies and beatles pinned in shadow boxes. I wish I had been able to photograph the bugs for Jackie, my entymologist college roommate.
We grabbed some empanadas, sent Justin back to Santiago on a bus, hit a roadside fruitstand, and made our way down to Santa Cruz with Sam's folks. Sam got us remarkably lost along one of the "short cuts" he thought he found, but eventually Rich's intuition and my map-reading got us to our hotel.
After arriving, we went to dinner at a typical Peruvian restaurant and they had the worst insulation of any place I had ever been. Not only did we keep our coats on throughout dinner, Sue kept her gloves on. Overall, the food was really, good. I had steak and grilled veggies because it was the only thing on the menu that featured vegetables of any kind. Dear Lord these people need to encorporate more FRESH FRUIT AND VEGGIES into their diets! We also tried some local wine that is only made in Chile, which was peppery and very warming.Tomorrow, wine tasting!
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