Ridiculous Goodness

Ken wanted to rent a car a couple days ago, but I couldn't justify the expense. We love the little neighborhood where we're staying (even though we haven't yet found a permanent place to live): it has a little veggie stand, a bodega, and a German/Spanish/Chilean bakery within two blocks. Everything here is walkable, and taxi rides are usually $2-3 to get pretty much anywhere. So why rent a car?

But I think he was going into withdrawal from not driving for a couple weeks, so I chalked it up to New Experience. We rented a car and Ken said he'd find a place for us to go that our feet and a taxi couldn't really take us.

DID HE!
Today, he planned a route for us to drive to Curñanco. It's someplace where there are supposed to be four rain forests within some national park. Turns

out the park is closed on Sundays -- natch, in Chile. But Ken (he has chosen to go by "Geraldo" in Chile, did I mention that?) said, "We're going anyway." The route was planned, the car was rented, and what else do we have to do?

Five minutes out of town, this is what we see! Judge if you must, but one of the sayings Idris has come up with over the last year to express amazement seems to apply here: "Oh God Jesus."

So we stop a few times along the way, and then we come to what now seems like the inevitable Fin de Camino: The End of the Road. No matter. One may simply park one's car at El Fin de Camino and do what? Caminar.

This is what we saw. We are near the top of a mountain, with ocean waves hitting a big bank of rocks down below. There is nobody else there.

I've never seen anything like this before. We walk down the mountain on a path carved by many who have come before us. My thought at that moment of decline was how grateful I am for other people. They did a lot of work to make the path to this paradise easy for jamokes like me.

When we get to the bottom we run around the rocks, the sand, the shells, and the crazy fat seaweed

along the Pacific Ocean. "Follow me to the other cave!" is the kind of the thing the kids were saying to each other. Like on our practice hiking trip in Maryland, Idris just ran from wet rock to wet rock without fear.

The weather is perfect, so we stay down there for a long time. It's totally incredible and amazing and every superlative you can think of. Just totally outside comprehension.

And then we decide to leave, so we come up to the top of the mountain and Idris and Geraldo go into a little red shop for a Coke. Nope, they are not allowed to buy a Coke. There seems to be some

subtle/not-so-subtle demand that food be bought. So when Io and I finally mosey up, we go in and I insist that we buy a bunch of food and drink to support the local food seller.

Turns out we buy a dozen shrimp-and-cheese empanadas and a bottle of wine.

Whoops!

Such a tragedy. You may know that I've been gluten-free for 3.5 years after trying to get 'hold of a wheat allergy that seems to have ruined my face. It didn't work, FYI (face is still ruined), but now I do feel like sh%&*t any time I eat wheat. I've eaten it once intentionally and once

unintentionally, and the results were not good.

You know where this story is going, don't you? They gave us a dozen empanadas! And I watched her roll out the dough and drop the little cheesy bundles of heaven into the grease. I didn't want to be rude, you see.

I ate them. You would too! It was the first time in over three years I've really even been tempted. I was looking over this beautiful vista, I was smack-dab in the middle of southern South America, and a lovely woman named Maria Elena had just offered me a dozen empanadas to go with my bottle of wine.

Kind friends, it's been two hours since, and I'M NOT SICK! So happy. A little fogginess and ear ringing, but nothing big. I know that's not important compared to the rocks and the sand and

the mantañas y el playa y todo. But I ate four empanadas on the top of a glorious mountain and I'm not sick! More on this topic later, for your delight, no doubt.
But for now, I'm taking a deep breath. I'm closing my eyes. I'm tearing up. Because life is ridiculously good.