Creepy Crawlies

The kids have a hard time focusing on school here. The sun is just so welcoming and studying is no fun, but mostly the insects are a distraction.

 This little guy was hanging from our door frame one morning. How can you focus on math with him there? The kids found another stick bug on a hike one day.

 

 I've never seen a bright green beetle before. Pretty cool, even if it's in my house...

As it gets warmer we have tons and tons of beetles sneaking in every crack. All I can say is don't walk down the hall barefooted in the dark.

Now we get down to the nitty gritty...did you know that there are TONS of poisonous spiders here? Well only one species, the brown recluse or Rincon, but there are tons of those.

This isn't a Rincon, but it was big and nasty and on our wall so I killed it anyway. Some people say all the big brown spiders are brown recluses, some say only a few. I kill them all to be sure and check my blankets like 20 times every night. I will not miss the spiders when we leave...

 This is a Chilean Rose Tarantula. It's the same kind you see in pet shops in the states. They are big and hairy and creepy looking, but harmless. We have seen quite a few of these in our yard.

 

"Now sit down at the table and finish your math right now!" Okay, maybe that doesn't happen too often. It's more like, "Fine go play. I wanted to beat this level on Candy Crush anyway."

Santiago

A local friend invited all of us outsiders to tour Santiago with his family this past Saturday. First we drove up San Cristobal hill, which was packed with bikers and hikers. We ate empanadas at the top and enjoyed the view of the city, then rode the Fununcular down and back up again to say we did it.

The kids and I defying gravity at a park on the hill.

 

 

 

 

Waiting for the fununcular.

 

 

 Izzy, Joseph, Mando, and Paul on the fununcular. Me being bossy like always.

 

 Eating empanadas and trying to get the pigeons to eat off our feet and hands. (Joseph's piece was a little too big.)

 A view of the city. It's huge. Half of all of Chile lives in Santiago.

 I can see my house from here! Okay, not really.

 Sitting in the hot, hot sun for a shadowy family picture with the city in the background.

 

The tallest building in South America

 

Then we headed over to the temple to see the grounds. The kids were most interested in the fountain. It was a very hot day.

 

The rest of the tour was driving by buildings on the way home because everyone was hot and tired. It was cool to see the city, but as always, it was so nice to pull up to our shady home and feel the breeze and listen to the birds. I'm so glad I don't live in a city!

I like birds

Every morning, before the sun even makes its way over the hill behind our house, I hear hundreds of birds chirping and tweeting outside my window. It's actually a nice way to wake up. They continue their songs all day long. We're so used to the sound now that we don't even hear it anymore.

We watched The Big Year with Paul recently and he became very interested in birds, so we decided to learn the names of all of the different birds here. Paul and I took a notebook and my ipad outside and listened to "I Like Birds" by Eels over and over while reading what birds were in the area and then matching the pictures and the calls to the birds we have here. We have a small leak in our water line that has created a little birdbath right next to the car port. It is a gathering spot for all the birds, especially first thing in the morning and right before the sun goes down. I love to watch all the birds play in it while I wash my dishes.

Most of these pictures are off the internet because I don't have a zoom lens to take pictures, but we have all these species in our yard and can see one out the window at almost any moment.



1. Chimango Caracara: These are hunting birds in the Falcon family and while they're not as common as the smaller birds, they're all over. I've seen one in my yard eating a smaller bird - so gross and yet so cool. I've seen groups of them circling over the trees in the hills behind our house, looking for an unsuspecting victim to eat for lunch. The other birds don't like them and the blackbirds and Chilean Mockingbirds attack them when they stop here for a drink.

 2. Southern Lapwing (Treile, Queltehue): These birds have the creepiest call, like a woman screaming in a horror movie, and they scream all night long. We're all used to it now, but none of us could sleep at first. There is a male and female raising a chick in our yard and one day their baby got trapped in our drained pool so I had to go rescue it.

Look, I'm even standing like a mama bird! Actually I'm making sure the very angry mom doesn't attack me. The adults have bone spurs under their wings for fighting.

 My good deed of the day.

 

from http://avesaraucaniachile.blogspot.com/

 

 

3. Austral Thrush: These are cocky birds who prance around the yard like they own the place. They are very fast and almost pounce on bugs. We have quite a few of these in the yard and they are usually on the ground. Their call is ugly and guttural. They are good sized, but not as big as the hawks or lapwing.

Some Austral Thrush outside my kitchen window.

 

 

4. Long-tailed Meadowlark (Loica): My favorite bird. These fat birds are striking with their black backs, white stripe over the eye, and round red bellies. They LOVE water and visit the birdbath frequently, as well as chase the sprinkler water in an attempt to get a nice shower. Then they fluff all up and do a little crazy shake. Very entertaining.

A Loica outside my kitchen window.

 

 

 

5. Chilean Mockingbird (Tenca): These birds are territorial and will relentlessly attack any Chimango Caracaras who stop by for a drink. They are also highly suspicious and won't stop for water if we're outside. Smart birds.

 

6. California Quail (Codorniz): These birds remind me of chubby old women wearing hats as they waddle along. As always the male is more striking than the female. A couple comes by for water every evening, but they are such wimps it takes them like 2 hours to get one drink. They get close, then run away, then get close, then run away...

Mr. and Mrs. Quail chillin' on a tree stump.

 

7. Rufus Collared Sparrow: These birds are very fashionable with their spiked hair and red scarves. The males have Paul and my favorite call. It's like 4 or 5 notes and goes up and down rather than being a constant chirp.

 

8. House Sparrow: In all my research I learned that the males look more striking in breeding season. Since it's currently spring, they are in breading season and look like they've all grown beards for the occasion. The females are just plain brown. This is the second most common bird in our yard.



Left: A male house sparrow on the power line outside my bedroom window.

Right: We love looking for nests in the trees. We found one that was close enough to the ground that we could look at the eggs. I'm pretty sure it's a House Sparrow egg. So much more fun that going to school...

 

 9. Diuca Finch: We have tons of these little grey and white birds in our yard. They just call them Diucas here.

 

10. Blackbirds

11. Shiny Cowbird (looks like a blackbird who has been swimming in oil). 

12. House Wren
13. Dove - different varieties.

14. Vulture (we have a lot of these circling the trees behind our house too. There used to be a pig farm nearby and they feasted on the dead pigs).

 

We can go outside at any moment and within 15 minutes see most of these species. Or we can sit inside with a Coke Lite and look out a window and see them. I will definitely miss them when we go!

"I don't care for walkin' downtown
Crazy auto-car gonna mow me down
Look at all the people like cows in a herd
Well, I like...Birds" (Eels).

La Serena

We decided to take a weekend trip up to La Serena, a very Americanized coastal town about 7 or 8 hours north of us. The company originally intended to buy land for the olive farm in that area and so they have a beautiful office/house in a gated neighborhood (where we stayed). However, after setting up a corporate office for all the South America operations in La Serena, they couldn't find suitable land. They looked further away and found land for the olive farm about 2 years ago. It was originally a grape farm (table grapes, not wine). So they tore all the grapes out and began the process of planting olive trees (another post). Now the corporate offices are being moved down here. There will be new houses in a gated community and new offices.

But this is all in the future, for now let's go back to La Serena and see how much fun we had.

First, let me just say that we had NO idea how far away La Serena was. North of Santiago you go through a rocky, dry canyon and then it is pretty much a dessert for hours and hours. A few hours south of La Serena you hit the coast and the road winds through rolling hills and dense trees, then suddenly the coast will be there: frothy waves beating against stalwart black rocks and soft moist sand and behind that grey-blue water spreading out to eternity on the horizon. Then like that it is gone and the trees are back hiding the mysterious ocean from our view.

You can imagine that part was nice.

We got to the house late Wednesday evening and went out for pizza and groceries. Although the pizza was nothing like home, it was better than any pizza we've eaten here. Or maybe we were just hungry.

The next morning we went to the La Serena museum, which like most history was incredibly creepy.

 Left: Family outside the museum. Right: The narrow overcrowded streets of La Serena

 Paul and Joseph pretending to be babies in some sort of ancient hollowed out rock.

We got in trouble for this.

If you aren't allowed to play in a rock, I suggest you put it behind a wall and not right by a bench...

 Creepy mummy heads. I couldn't read enough Spanish to read what everything was, but we could still enjoy the disgustingness of it all.

 

 Paul checking out the mummy. I do know that the Incas mummified their emperors and basically treated them as if they were alive. They had special servants who fanned the flies away and offered them food and told people what the mummies wanted to say. I don't know if this is one of those lucky mummies.

 It's a good thing silky was there to make everything okay for Becca.

 

 Look! We went to Easter Island too! Actually this statue is like a smaller version of the statues on Easter Island. Nobody knows why it was in La Serena or where it came from, but they found it and put it with all the other creepy stuff in the museum.

One of the many old buildings in downtown La Serena.

 

 

 

We ate lunch at a ridiculously overpriced place by the coast. We ordered a meat and a seafood parrillada. I was brave and tried all sorts of seafood. Bad decision. This wasn't the crab legs and shrimp that we usually think of, it was a lot of squishy, chewy stuff. The fried fish was pretty good, but next time I'll just have a nice safe pork chop.
 

 Then we walked across the street to let the kids play in the sand. They had these awesome exercise machines. I've seen them at parks in a few towns here, but we've never stopped to play on them before.

 

No matter how many activities you plan, the sand is always the most fun - even when it's cloudy and cold.

I love this picture of Becca pensively staring out across the ocean.

Building little castles and waiting for the waves to attack them. It never gets old.

 

The relief society. I think Sam and I just told a funny joke.

 

Mando took these 2. Good job Mando.

You can see the hotel behind Paul. The beach is very touristy.

Mando found this piece of rock with little creatures living inside the holes. I hope I didn't eat any of these earlier at the restaurant...

One of the guys with us told us this was called Agua Muerte, or dead water. It's not alive or anything, just a piece of jelly water. Even Wikipedia doesn't know what it is.

 

That night we went to a famous observatory near La Serena. We met the tour group at 10 pm and followed them up a windy mountain road. When we got there it was pitch black and very late (both necessary to see stars). As you can imagine that is not very fun for little kids, but I loved it. We walked up a spiral staircase to a dome building. The ceiling could open slightly and then rotate so the opening was pointing the direction you wanted to see. An English-speaking guide told us a little about the stars we could see and then let us all view a few famous stars/clusters. Did you know the constellations are upside down in South America? The telescopes we were looking through were so powerful that we were looking at things like one star in a cluster or part of a different galaxy. It was kind of hard for the kids to grasp. Then some of the little ones started crying and we had to go. Too bad. Here's a really grainy iphone picture of the big telescope. You can't see the dome top, but it's the best I could get in the pitch black.

 

 

The next morning everyone was tired and we thought we would just go back to the beach for a few hours. But then it was cold, so we just hung around the house for a little while and then headed back.

Some flowers from the beautiful garden around the house.



Sam lounging on the carpet.

He loved to suck his lip like this for awhile, but he's kind of outgrowing it. I miss this face.

 

Sorry to go crazy with pictures of Sam, but he's so cute and chubby. I just can't resist.

We drove by tons of these windmills on the way home. It's hard to judge their size in a picture, but they're HUGE. I looked them up and they are apparently part of Chile's plan to provide power for the growing technology use.

It's probably good that Chile has a plan to upgrade their electricity - we see power lines like this all over the place.