billy bass meets his cousins

If, perhaps, you thought that I may have abandoned my blog, I am happy to report that I have not. Instead, I have merely taken a hiatus…one part due to a busy schedule and the other part due to pure laziness. I am a firm believer in the old saying that “distance makes the heart grow fonder” and I am counting on this hiatus to strengthen our nonexistent, blog relationship. It was all a part of the plan, you see.

Life in Chile has continued on nicely. Christmas came and went and although it was strange to be without my family, I was entirely too occupied to realize the nature of the situation. Large family gatherings are a stressful place for a new Spanish speaker…you would not believe how fast Chileans speak when they get together. I spent most of my time either trying to follow conversations, trying to make conversations, or trying to avoid conversations… and at every awkward moment, I retreated to the food table and read my dictionary. Just kidding. But not really, because I did read my dictionary at one point during the night.

As you may have concluded from my previous blog posts, Ernesto, my Chilean host father loves to fly fish. He’s a fanatic, actually, and planned a fly fishing trip the morning after Christmas with his brothers, some friends, Milka, and I. The estimated time of departure was 3:30am and although the ladies of the house were a bit puzzled as to why a fish would hold precedence over sleep, we didn’t ask questions, slid on our hiking boots and were out the door with smiles.

“This fly here, is a combination of rabbit hair and synthetic chenille” Ernesto whispers as he holds out a tiny fly the size of a pebble. We are standing beside a creek in between a mountain range, 6am in the morning, dressed head to toe in fly fishing attire.
“Beautiful, isn’t it?” He whispers as he holds it up to the sunlight in admiration.
“Yes, beautiful” I say, though suspicious as to how a fake fly the size of a pebble is supposed to attract fish let alone be beautiful.
“Now you have to be quiet,” he continues, “because fish are smart.” “Kneel down like this, Lindsay, we don’t want to be seen.”
I kneel beside him, trying to take this just as seriously as any avid fly fisher would. As Ernesto casts, I see the fly take a loop in the air and land in the water upstream.
“And the fish actually bite?” I ask, still perplexed as the fly disappears from sight.
“You bet they do. All it takes is a little bit of patience.” Ernesto reassures.


Yes, beautiful...


Da boss.

Although I was not entirely reassured, I took my stab at fly fishing and quickly found that the hobby takes skill. If you didn’t already know, fish swim upstream on only side of the current to find their food. You therefore, must cast your fly to land accordingly…. reel it in at a specific angle…all the while staying out of the fish’s vision. I have yet to master any of the above and instead found myself casting and reeling in, tying on new flies because I caught mine in the bushes, catching those new flies in the rocks, tying on newer flies, dropping flies, splashing around looking for flies etc. etc. Surprise, surprise, I did not catch a fish…but the boys did and I was able to take part in their excitement which was all that I needed to justify my efforts.


I am really cold in this picture! Mornings are freezing in Chile.


Heaven on earth?

Fish or no fish, I thoroughly enjoyed myself on our trip to the mountains. Chile is a beautiful country and I’m so happy that I was able to spend the weekend hiking and “fishing”. I have been lucky enough to have also made a trip to the country side last weekend but due to my blog hiatus; I do not have a post for that one. The picture below will have to suffice.


Nothin' like an American friend.

I will be spending the New Year at the beach and promise to report back with good stories. In the meantime, you all had better be getting in some good skiing with all that powder you have back home! I am legitimately upset that I have missed the snowfall and am on the verge of booking a flight back to Chile to ski the Andes in August to make up for it. Who’s down?

While you think about that one, I am signing out because I am exhausted (the Spanish takes a toll on you, it really does). Thank you for your prayers, e-mails, tweets, and letters, I love hearing from you!

Chao until next time,

Lindsay