El Monte

This trip on Saturday to the tiny tiny town of El Monte showed me two very important things:

1. The kindness of strangers
2. I love studying abroad. Period.

At a fonda (those September 18th Chilean parties), there was a kiosk called Maass Chocolatería that sold alfajores (for those who don't know what an alfajor is, think Korean Chocopie or American Moon Pie). This man, Pedro, made the best alfajores I had ever eaten in South America. Actually, the best alfajores I have eaten--ever. Instead of the traditional dulce de leche filling, he filled it with dried figs and nuts. And I am a freak for figs!! We started talking and he told me about his little rural town of El Monte, 45 minutes away from Santiago by bus. He gave me a tourism brochure for El Monte, his cell phone number, and the cell phone number of his work partner (who I later found out was also his girlfriend) so that we can visit El Monte one day. I kept that phone number because the alfajores I ate were so amazing. I finally called Pedro last week to ask if I could visit, spurred on by a study abroad packet that said I should call someone who gives me their phone number. He responded quickly and offered to show us around the town, but he said he couldn't be with us the entire time because he had previous engagements. I didn't mind, I didn't expect someone I only met once to be my personal tour guide. I had thought it would be a short 3 hour excursion thru a tiny town of about 7 paved roads, a town that that not even people from Santiago know about. However, it turned out to be a 9 hour trip spent with Pedro and his GF Teresa, walking thru charming unpaved roads of El Monte and making very special friends.

My travel buddies of the day, Grace and Emily (from Syracuse. Ask me how we met, it's a funny story.)

While waiting for Pedro in the main square (plaza) of El Monte, saw this cute kid by the fountain.

The Plaza of El Monte.

Some statue of something.

Pedro came and off the bat began spitting out historical facts about El Monte. It intimidated me a bit but I knew we had a good tour guide on our hands. He took us to the church in the plaza where there was a Catholic infant baptism going on.

He then took us through the small streets of the town. The bottom picture is a very important pillar of El Monte, said Pedro. There are 4 pillars around town and they have some historical significance. I just don't know what it is...

El Monte has a small private owned museum with artifacts that even date all the way back to A.D. 800! I was shocked that it was in such a small little museum, which was literally just a room with artifacts. Pedro showed us he significance of every little thing, and it was then I discovered he was on the town committee that tries to help develop tourism in the town. The town is unfamiliar with tourism that it doesn't have artisan stores that are common in other small towns in Chile where tourists can buy souvenirs. Nor does it have many tourist-friendly restaurants. It's very much a small town with very little foot traffic, which Pedro and the committee want to change because there's so much preserved historical significance of Chile in this small town, unlike neighboring towns that have lost its historical identity.

And here begins the unpaved roads...

With cows!!

Walking on this unpaved road reminded me of outside Virginia's house in San Pablo, Tucumán, Argentina where we did the evangelism campaigns. It was funny because Pedro asked us if we had ever been to the campo (countryside) before, and I said yes, but only in Argentina. He asked me where and I said Tucumán, and turns out he has spent a lot of time there as well!

We arrived at the front gate of what used to be a hacienda (ranch) of the Carrera family, the first president of Chile. Unfortunately it's privately owned so we couldn't enter. But this is one of the examples of historical significance in El Monte!

We are at a vineyard. We were going to enter the building simply by Pedro asking the keys from the owner (it's that much of a small town feel you can enter some private building by just asking permission) but the owner was out for lunch.

Pedro, with his history know-all, told us about this old style of making windows that protects the residents from thieves from entering. On the bottom level lived the animals and on the 2nd floor lived the people.

I asked Pedro if this door to the main part of the vineyard was an original from the 1800's and he said no and showed me that this seemingly old lock is just a facade for the normal modern lock. :( I was disappointed. Haha.

I think this picture is so funny: Pedro giving his history lesson, Gracie listening, and Emily with her gigantic camera taking a foto of it, and I'm taking a foto of them.

Behind the vineyard is a potato field.

This is a stable that used to hold the cows for a milk factory (what are those called in English?? I can only think of the Spanish word lechería).

That's Pedro! Doing what he's best at.

Rural, no? But so tranquil and nice.

Pedro then showed us the house that he recently bought...haha. These kinds of houses were built in the 1920s for the people who worked on the haciendas. I forget the word, but it's kind of like indentured servants where they couldn't own the houses they bought and if they refused to work, they have no economic protection. These workers could only survive on the hacienda because the hacienda had its own separate economy from the rest of society.

It's a house that still needs a lot of work...

Then behind his house was this little river with a super old-school water pump!! It reminded of the movie My Neighbor Totoro and the scene where the sisters pumped water from their backyard. My mom also told me in Taiwan in the early 50's these water pumps existed. I remember in Taiwan when we went to the countryside I'd see these around.

Here's Pedro! I was going to take a picture of the railroad but he walked in front of the picture. No worries, good to remember him by. :)

It's (California) poppy season here!

Emo Emily shot.

Pedro then took us to the only tourist-friendly restaurant in El Monte-- La Pepita. The food was stinkin' good and there was a harp player in the background playing Chilean country music. And here Teresa, his polola (girlfriend) met up with us.

In the background is the former Chilean flag (white, blue, and yellow). The yellow stood for the wheat that Chile was so big on growing back in the day and that they exported all over South America and USA.

Hands down the best empanada (de pino-- which is ground beef, hardboiled egg, olive, and onion) I've eaten in Chile. Usually the ones I buy from random stores in Santiago have really thick doughy skin, but this one was crispy and baked in a huge outdoor stone oven!!

After lunch, Pedro took us next door to a chichería, which is where they make delicious delicious chicha, an alcoholic drink that tastes like juice naturally made from a special type of grape. It was actually just someone's house. We encountered a man shoeing a horse in the house's back yard! It was intense as he clipped of the hooves of the horse and pounded nails into its hooves. It doesn't hurt the horse at all but it looked really painful as he was doing it.

Here is the chichería, but everything was gone after September 18. :( Drank it all up and sold it. But these are the huuuuge ancient jugs where they store the chicha.

These are the gourds (called mates, funnily enough) dried and cut in half used to scoop out the chicha because metal or plastic get ruined by the chicha.

And this house also raised chickens!! For you, Higa! The old woman who fed the chickens had a witchy voice and cackled as she threw chicken feed and all the chickens crowded around her.

Then Pedro and Teresa took us to Teresa's mom's garden. This ain't no Better Homes and Garden type of garden. It was a....GARRRDEN. Here we have bee keepers working on my favorite sweetner--HONEY! Homemade/raw honey is very common here. It's sold on the streets, at church (I bought a jar for $5). And honey here isn't that expensive. I asked the bee keepers from afar (for fear of getting stung by the swarm) if there was a bee disappearance crisis like there is the USA and the lady bee keeper told me thankfully it hasn't affected Chile. Lets hope it stays that way.

The "GARDEN."

Complete with a water tower for the workers of the vineyard next door (or next field, if you look at it realistically).

And she has her own greenhouse!

They allowed us to pick our own bouquet of flowers. Here are the flower princesses. Pedro had originally had previous engagements to come here to pick flowers, but he asked us if we wanted to pick flowers with him. We said "Why not?" We just wanted to keep on seeing what else El Monte had to offer and Pedro was a fantastic tour guide-- and thus how Pedro was our full-day tour guide.

Teresa joked that when she lived in here as a child, the mountain range was her backyard. No kidding. We walked to the mountain range and began an unexpected hike.

It was here I realized I was not ready for this hike. It wasn't too bad, I just should've been better prepared.

When I got to the top. Finally. Whew. So tiring. But look! fuzzy yellow ball tree! It was amazing too how much Pedro and Teresa knew about flowers. They just saw flowers and trees and knew the names of them.

Here's me at the top! Totally unprepared with a huge purse, skinny jeans, a cardigan, and a scarf. Didn't feel good. But I made it; albeit ungracefully.

Beautiful purple flowers with a beautiful yellow contrast in the middle. God makes pretty colors :)

I inhaled the air here. It felt so good to see the sky, the rivers, and fields from up high.

After the unexpected hike, Pedro took us to Teresa's mom's house to rest (for him, as he had been guiding us around for 6 hours straight). There, we met Teresa's mom and they wrapped up the flowers we picked and gave it to us in 3 HUUUUGE bouquets! All for us! So generous they are...

And afterwards, I HAD to see the amazing chocolate factory that hooked me to El Monte in the first place. So I asked if we could see it and they took us there.

Where the chocolate/sweets magic happens! This is a chocolate melter with a bottle of Bailey's to make real filling for the bonbons.

Being the super generous people they are, they took out all their already made chocolates and let us taste them! This was coffee filled-chocolate and on the right is Bailey's-filled. Yummm...

Chocolate with nougat.

Remainders of chocolate mixes! Teresa told us that Pedro always insists on eating the leftovers and not let it go to waste. Haha. Teresa said she can't eat chocolate anymore. We suggested to her to sell the leftovers/mistakes just as American chocolate stores do. Just wrap it pretty and sell it for cheaper and it will sell. She said that she usually uses mistakes as samples.

The magical dried figs they use for their alfajores!!!!

The crackers/shortbread they use in the alfajores!

The amaaaazing end result. Apparently their alfajores are pricier than other brands. Their alfajores run for $1/each while in supermarkets one can buy another brand for about 20 cents. They explained to us the difference is in the quality of the ingredients they use. The 20 cent alfajores use lower grade chocolate or even cocoa butter, while Maass (the name of their business) uses real chocolate. It's a pity though that people go for the cheapier stuff for the price, because people don't appreciate the quality of the ingredients and simply go for the lower price tag. And the figs that you saw-- the two of them chop up the figs by hand themselves and let it soak in rum to make the alfajor filling. I asked them if they would sell mint-flavored alfajores (which I love), and they were unwavering in the commitment to natural ingredients. They said if they made mint alfajores, they would have to use mint flavoring, which is unnatural. Wow. I joked and suggested they put in a mint leaf instead. Of course, to support their amazing business and two very wonderful, generous, interesting people, we filled our baggies and bought alfajores to take home and share with our pals. I really want their business to grow; being in El Monte, a rural town, it's hard to sell alfajores as such a high price (by town standards) therefore they have to sell them in Santiago. What sucks though is that some people are weirded out by the fruit filling in the alfajores, because Chileans aren't very daring in their palates (yeah...I noticed...) and they like alfajores with only dulce de leche. They use their chocolate factory as a way to attract tourism in El Monte, which I admire for such a grand vision they have. I want to help them spread the word and even make alfajores a huge hit in the States. They are thinking of exporting to the States (Miami in particular for the large Latino population) but the standards are very demanding. I hope they make it :)

$6 worth of alfajores and a huge bouquet of flowers later, I came home to Santiago and showed my Chilean mom my goodies from the day. The flowers made her so happy because she loves flowers and flower arranging but it's expensive for her to buy since she's retired. I had brought home so many flowers that it filled up 3 vases. The house is much brighter now with these 3 vases of hand picked flowers from El Monte, thanks to the generosity of Pedro and Teresa. :)