In this pic I'm standing atop Piedra del Indio in Coyhaique, Chile. On the other side there is a profile of a face. Why do they always call naturally ocurring things that look something like people "_____ del indio" when they just look like any old guy? I'm serious. I've seen Cabeza del Indio in El Bolson, in Colorado there is Sleeping Ute. Do you think the Utes just call him "sleeping guy?"
Ok. Obviously Louann having gone back to the states has given me time to think some very profound thoughts. Please excuse any typos. I’m not a very good typist, but in addition to that, this computer is trying to autocorrect my spelling, but in Spanish.
It turns out we got lucky the first few days in Coyhaique, in terms of weather. Its a good thing we got to swim a couple times and see some staff befote the customary clouds and rain came in. What we got the frist few days was freakishly nice weather. Cloudy is the norm. So the days are spent doing minor householdy things, chopping wood, playing with kids, drinking mate and eating. Most of today was spent getting the dog to the vets (she either got hit by a car or beat up by another dog) and waiting, going to the pharmacy and waiting. We got some bikes fixed up so we’ve tooled around town a bit, but these hills make me not look forward to returning home.
One night we adults went out to Quilantal, a dance hall. There were two live bands. They placed the normal 
cumbia stuff that seems to be popular, plus mexican corridos and 
local folk dances like chamamé, and cueca, Chile’s national dance. I can probably count on one hand the number of times Lou and I went out to dance in the past year, but I got out and boogied a couple of times that night. I got to be the front of a boogie-train! Toward the end of the night Claudia asked if I wanted to cueca. I said, no, not really. But then Cata reminded me that if I didn’t try it now, I might never have the chance. So, I was given a ketchup stained napkin from the table and headed to the dance floor. I think Lou and I saw this dance before in Mendoza, men and women dancing around each other, waving hankies around, but I never really paid attention to what they were actually doing. So I can’t say that I actually danced a cueca. Claudia danced a cueca and I sort of chased her around the floor with a dirty napkin. But I guess I never had the chance to do that before either.
New Years wasn’t all that different from New Years in the states, although I did hear of some popular New Year superstitions. People eat lentils for good luck, and some people wear yellow underwear into the new year for luck. Also, the first 12 days of January tell what your next 12 months will be like. If you spend the first day hungover, well, that’s what your January will be like. I don’t know what it means for my March, having spent much of today waiting for a dog to get repaired.
On New Years, we had a big lamb asado again, this time in the yard. The neighbors next door did the same. There was lamb in the air in Coyhaique. We ate and drank. A pretty mellow family time. There is a tradition of visiting another family alter midnight, but we did no such thing. Someone realized it was 10 to midnight and so we did we we do in the states, try to get the champagne open and turn on the TV for the official word. Long hugs for all the sat outside by the fire and had a guitar session. Someone found Claudias old song books from the 80s and we slaughtered spanish-language pop songs. Although I didn’t know most of them, it was fun to find in the collection some songs that I’d been listening to in solitude for years. Silvio RodrÃguez, Roberto Carlos, Sui Generis.
About 2 AM, Sergio, Cata and I decided to go and try to find something
less homey. We went walking. We walked around for about an tour and a half. All we found was 3 expensive places with 10 and 15 dollar cobres. All the dives seemed to be closed. But Coyhaique is a town not known for its night life. Eventually we found a place that sold a bottle of wine for $8, which is a bit high but we were desperate to sit down. Did I mention that we were also wearing hats from the kids’ costume collection? After the wine, we went back to the house and chatted by the fire til well after the sun came up.
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