Having returned to Liza’s I rested for a day and headed to Valparaiso, an artsy town close to Santiago. However, I did not go alone as Viki, the girl from the Bariloche hike was also in Santiago and we decided to go together. We stayed at a nice hostel a bit away from the center, but worth it as the breakfast was the best I’ve had in any hostel so far. On our first day we explored the town a bit and loved to see the sheer amount of graffiti art here.
The famous flowered door of Valpo. 
The next day however became even more special as Anastasia decided to join us for a day as well (she was staying with family in a town 1.5 hours south). Together we went to see Viña del Mar and Concón, towns very close to Valparaiso. In Concón we visited the sand dunes, which were beautiful apart from the fact that they placed buildings right next to them and in Viña we went to see the park only to be warned how unsafe it was by the police officers there.
The sand dunes of
Concón
Viki and Anastasia enjoying the soft sand beneath their feet 
Viki enjoying the view 
The ‘Bariloche is awesome’ gang almost completely reunited (we miss you Silvio!)
Unfortunately our paths split once again as after the parque Anastasia left us and Viki went the next day. I would leave one day later and head to Santiago once more to visit Liza as I was invited to spent a long weekend at her family’s farm, where her parent are building a house. Since the house was not finished I stayed at her aunts place (mother of Anita).
Kids playing out the naval war between Chile and Peru 
Liza’s cousin dancing the traditional Chilean dance 
The kids concluding the event with a song 
The family table at the fundraiser 
Liza joining the Bingo 
Having fun with the little ones
Though there were no plans and I thought I could relax there I couldn’t be more wrong as we had a busy schedule. On Saturday Liza’s little cousin would perform some dances at his local school in anticipation of the national holidays celebrating the end of the war between Peru and Chile and afterwards we went to a fund raiser party where we had dinner and I got to see the entire family, which was huge! Being the only gringo every little cousin wanted to speak with me, but since I only started practicing Spanish less than 2 weeks before it was very hard for me. One little girl though asked me at some point how many Spanish words I knew and I answered that I knew between 100-200 words to which she responded that by the end of this weekend I would know much more words and apparently she was right. Being forced to speak Spanish all day (only Liza, her brother and cousin spoke English) taught me an incredible amount of Spanish and will definitely use this in my later travels.
On Sunday we went to another festivity. Illapel is know for its agriculture in Chile and they therefore celebrate some saints regarding successful harvests. Though the procession did contain statues of the saint and Maria the dances were mostly derived from the prehispanic times. It was very fun to experience.
Bishop having a service before the national procession 
El Diablo also makes a short appearance 
No procession is complete without a Maria statue
The last day before leaving Illapel I promised to make sugarbread, a local Friesian bread recipe containing sugar and cinnamon. It was quite hard to find the correct ingredients, but having some fantasy (replacing ginger syrup with dulce de leche for instance) we came up with a decent recipe and the bread turned out to be delicious. Liza and I made the equivalent of three breads, but in the evening with all the family present the bread survived a mere 10 minutes before it was fully eaten. I guess they liked it!
Sharing the bread made me shed a tear (It was too good to share!) 
Proud of our recent accomplishment (feeing a famished family)
The next day though, it was time to leave Liza and her hospitality behind me (at this point I must have spent about 10 days in her lovely company) and head towards the next point of my trip being the Atacama desert and Bolivia!