Today we finally arrived in Vina Del Mar. Of course there is something about this city that just draws me back every time I am in Chile. I love the drive from Santiago out to Vina Del Mar. Through the wine region of Casa Blanca makes me feel like I am back in Italy. As we approached Vina Del Mar, the coastal fog was hovering over the area. It was still early in the morning and the fog hadn’t burned off for the day yet. The fog made it for a mystical descent over the last hill as we dropped down into Valparaiso and then turned off to the right towards Vina Del Mar. I felt some anticipation as we drove through the streets and I saw everyone hurrying to get to work this morning. I love seeing the micros full of people. I love seeing all the kids in their school uniforms and the streets filled with people gathering bread for the morning breakfast.

We found our little hotel, The Hotel Monterilla. We normally stay the Casino Vina Del Mar, but Rick says I am on a fixed budget these days so we opted for a hotel across the street. The Hotel Monterilla reminds me a small boutique hotel like some of the ones that we stay at in Italy. It wasn’t anything fancy, but it was comfortable and the people that worked there were very nice. After a quick rest we were off to work.

We arrived up at La Escuela Especial de Rapa Nui. We toured the small school, it gave a chance to those that had not been there before the opportunity to see how the school functions, meet the school professors and see the children that we would be helping out. The kids get so excited to have visitors. It is fun to see their excitement. They want to show us everything that they are working on and the latest art projects they have done. We got to see the bakery that we had built the last time we were hear. The kids were in there working on baking a pastry called Brasa de Reina. It was good to see the kids using the bakery. They were excited to show us the different things they had learned to do in the new bakery.

We knew we wouldn’t be able to complete everything in our project by ourselves during this trip, so we hired some local handymen to come and help out. We were very pleased to see that they had actually started before we arrived and had already installed support beams for the roof structure. While those guys worked on installing the plastic corrugated roof, we started our designer painting of the roof structures supports and beams. If you ever make it to Chile, you will see that Chileans love color. Houses are painted blue, yellow, red, green and very vibrant colors at that. I think it helps make a difference in a world where everything is either brown dirt or green shrubs. The splash of color on the houses makes for a beautiful patchwork of modern art. Our painting skills might not be the most professional, but everything looks good. 

After painting, we had free time to wander around Vina Del Mar. Everyone was pretty tired so we opted for an early dinner. That of course is a relative term. Here in Chile, restaurants don’t open until around 8:00 in the evening. After dinner everyone went back to the hotel to catch up on their sleep after flying the night before. Of course, Fred and I decided we need to explore some more. We ended up at a little bar down the street from our hotel called Kamikaze. The median age in the bar was probably 19 but it was fun to try all the different Pisco drinks they had on the menu. After flirting with the cute Chilean girls and drinking our fair share of Pisco…Fred and I finally decided we better call it a night. Tomorrow there is more work to be done on our playground project.