Viña de Moda: ¡Fiestas Patrias!

September 18th celebrates Chile's independence day--the entire weekend becomes a nation-wide party, where Chilean's drink Chicha, eat lots of meat and empanadas and party at "La Fonda." FIESTAS PATRIAS. Las Fondas are outdoor party spaces constructed all over Chile to celebrate the day with live bands focusing on their national dance, the Cueca.

For my first Fiestas Patrias, I headed about 5 hours south of here with Rachael and Ale to a small town called Pichilemu, known for its surf. But i shouldn't make the group sound so small! Rachael had invited Ale and me along with a bunch of people she knows that are studying in Santiago. It was an international extravaganza--there were about 7 Spanish girls from Cataluña, Spain (meaning their first language is actually Catalan!) two Bolivians, two Chileans, some German girls, a French girl and some other Americans. We the group language was Spanish, so it was great practice too!

This one's for Jeremy...if he gets it..

Yehhh Rach.

world peace.

There wasn't much to see in the small town. We headed to Punta de Lobos one day--a well known surf spot. That was really beautiful. We walked around the center of Pichilemu, eating at their "best" empanada place, La Casa de las Empanadas, tried a classic dish called Paila Marinero (a simple soup filled with fresh shell fish! yum!) and soaked up some sun on the beach. It was sunny the whole weekend, but a bit cold from all the wind.

Rachael knows how to capture a moment

Epic. This is Punta de Lobos!

When we weren't exploring, we were hanging around our cabañas--we rented about four of them for the whole group. There were really sweet little houses with comfortable beds, kitchen, dining space, and bathroom. Really ideal! Since the weather was nice we were able to enjoy a pleasant hippy weekend--playing guitar and singing, sipping coffee or beer, had bbqs every night (so much meat i can't even think about it), and dancing to the small speakers brought along! It was really great how cool everyone we went with was--we all got along, and I got to know a little bit about a bunch of different people. It's inspiring to know a group can come together and enjoy each other's company. And it was great to have a weekend of dancing and drinking like old times with rach.