Brujas y locos

We arrived in Curico on Sunday and had a day to relax, settle in and get to know our new families and then Monday we headed off in convoy to see the coast, eat some food, and tour around a lake very near the coast. The legend has it that the lake was so deep that noone could plumb its depths and that it was a place where the witches (brujas) would meet in years gone by. This has, of course, turned into some serious local marketing with the papaya growers in the area using a neat witch label and many of the road and restaurant signs with witches on them as well. We had a chance to sample the local papayas after a ridiculous lunch where we ate the ocean in its entirety including locos (some type of abalone). The papayas from the area are delicious and quite different from the papayas of Mexico or Brazil.

The witches´wood papaya jam.

We then spent a couple of hours at the lake, went for a boat ride with Angel and Flavio and had onces (teatime). The lake is really lovely and the houses around it are large and clearly it is a place for those with a fair bit of money. We saw some black necked swans and some bird that looked like a coot, but I don´t know what kind so apologies to any birders out there.

The lake nearing sunset