PennTangs visit us in Chile (December 2008)

A few days before Christmas, the Tang family flew directly from New York to spend a week with us in Chile. We drove straight from the airport to our apartment in Viña del Mar where we spent the first half of the week. After getting some rest the first day and strolling through Reñaca, we visited Valparaiso the next day.

Las Torpederas beach in Playa Ancha. (Left to right: Helana, Beau, and Lauren Tang)

This is a typical spot in Cerro Bellavista in Valparaiso where we take a short break for the Tangs to pose.

We then moved on to the beach, spending the following afternoon in Zapallar.

Zapallar beach is in the background as we walk through a nice trail on the north side. (Left to right: Helana Tang, Beau Tang, Steve Tang, Monica Veliz, Lauren Tang, Leslie Tang).

Helana and Beau turned out to be good rock climbers and they found a good spot during our walk in Zapallar. Here they are with Steve at the top of the rock.

On Dec 24, we drove to the airport in Santiago on our way to Pucon.

Checking in to our flight to Temuco.

This is the cabin we rented near Pucon, which was right on the lake.

View from outside the cabin; Lake Villarrica with Volcan Villarrica in the background.

On Christmas day, the stockings of Lauren, Beau, and Helana were hanging above the chimney, well supported by rocks we picked up on the beach outside our cabin.

On our first full day, we went swimming to Lake Caburgua and then visited the "3 Saltos", one of which appears in the background.

The next day we started by taking a few family photos outside the cabin, with Lake Villarrica in the background.

We then left to our rafting trip that we had arranged the previous evening. After a 20 minute drive, we put on the wet suits and had to help put the raft on the river.

We had a raft just for ourselves, of course with a guide that gave us instructions of when to row. Helana was assigned to the front of the raft with instructions to hold tight when going through the rapids.

The lower section of the Trancura river has rapids of level 2 and 3. We had a great time and enjoyed the adventure although Monica was a bit quieter than usual at times!

The level 3 rapids were exciting, although we could not avoid getting wet.

After spending the afternoon rafting, we went to relax at the hot springs. The water was pretty warm and was a good way to end the day.

On the return to Santiago, we stopped for a late lunch in Temuco. Lauren suggested we try the restaurant "La Pampa" since we had just missed it the day we arrived. They had nice steaks that all of us enjoyed.

On the last day in Santiago, we toured parts of the city and went to Cerro San Cristobal.

The Tang family posing in Cerro San Cristobal with downtown Santiago in the background.