For the past 7 or 8 weeks (just about the time the clouds settled in) and until a couple of days before leaving, I wasn't really looking forward to it. That is an understatement - I was dreading it. It is a lot of work to pack up the family, the groceries, the beach gear. I had to make sure we had charged electronics for the drive, books to read at night, movies to entertain and dinners planned way ahead of time. I was in charge of making sure our half of the weekend was taken care of and I wasn't even up for the task of taking care of myself. Add to that the fact that I was going to have to be around people and be mildly charming (and not at all curmudgeony) and I wasn't so sure I could do it. But I did. I did it because I knew that the girls, B and our friends were all looking forward to it. And then, it all just started rubbing off on me and all of a sudden I was excited to go! I was even whistling as I packed the car on Friday morning. And I packed that car within an inch of free space!
We set off for Matanzas just before noon on Friday. The idea was that the girls (big and little) would get to the rental house early to unload and unpack the cars. That way, when the boys got there after work we could all just relax and enjoy. It worked - for the most part. But we made it with minutes to spare before the boys showed up...
Matanzas is a small beach town about 2 hours south west of Santiago. It is so small, in fact, it does not show up on my GPS. So when we asked the rental agent for the address so we could Google it for directions, she kindly informed us that there is no address. But don't fear, she would be sending us directions by email. And to her credit, she did. And they went something like this - take 78 south, get off about 20 km later, turn left after the white bridge, go another 5 km and head toward the large stone on your right...You get my drift. I am directionaly challenged to start with - these directions made my head spin. I would be lost before I could get anywhere near a white bridge. B did what he could. He set my GPS to get me to the closest town it contained (Navidad) and then I would have to just follow the rest of her emailed directions (Oh Lord Have Mercy).
And it was the adventure I thought it would be. We turned off of Route 78 long before the directions from Isa (our agent) said to. But knowing my navigational limits, I couldn't argue with the GPS. So, I listened to Juanita (yep, she has a name), turned off on the bypass and then regretted it almost immediately. Because Juanita and her mechanical Spanish took us on one round about tour. She navigated us through hills and valleys. She took us on small two lane roads through towns that I swore I saw tumbleweeds rolling through. She even took us on a not-road. What is a not-road, you ask? It is a gravel/dirt/mud/path that you can only top out at a whopping top speed of about 10 miles an hour. And we did this for about 10 miles. When we finally hit pavement again, I was so happy I could have done a jig.
But we weren't done yet. We still had to get from the town of Navidad, where Juanita left off, and into Matanzas, where the rental house was. And the only way to get there at this point was by following written directions that sounded like they came from a small town shop keeper who navigated by lunar cycles and cornfields (not being judgmental here - I grew up in such a place). And somehow, A and I did just fine. For awhile. But when we hit the town right before Matanzas and found that the road, the only marked road, to Matanzas was closed, we were at a loss. There were no other signs for how to get there. There was no address to plug into our phones. The only option we had was to stop at the gas station and ask the proverbial shop keeper for directions. We did - he directed us - and we got lost. Plan B. We called Isa, the girl that had written the directions hoping she could tell us where we were and what we needed to do to got from Point Lost to Point Beach.
I was let down. All she told us was to turn around, come back into town and take the road to Matanzas. Gee, why didn't we think of that? We kept telling her it was closed. Closed as in - there were huge barriers blocking our path and unless we got out, moved concrete slabs and drove around them, we were not getting through. And yet, she kept telling us to take it. We asked for another way...she said there wasn't one. Just take the road. We explained about the road blocks. She told us to take the road and to call when we hit Matanzas.
Uh, ok.
I was at a loss. This time I let my friend A lead. She got us up to a new hill with one problem. There was a fork in the road and neither road was marked. She stopped rolled down her window and asked which way I thought we should go. All I could think of was the Robert Frost poem "The Road Not Taken" and how in the poem it was good to take the one less traveled but in our case it could really make all the difference! And not in a "we finally got to where we wanted to go" way. Luckily, a taxi was heading up the road right then so we flagged him down and asked if we could make it to Matanzas this way. He said yep, just take that road there (not the one I would have chosen) and it will drop you in town (in Spanish, of course hence the reason it is not in quotes). And he was right. We had finally met it!
It only took us twice as long as it should have.
But once we saw this...
I almost, almost forgave Juanita for having as horrible a sense of direction as I do (though in my defense I don't claim to have one and she has a whole marketing campaign based around hers).
We let the girls loose in the house while we unpacked. And then fed them all some dinner and parked them in front of the t.v. Just as we were cracking open the wine and stealing a small snack, the boys walked in. As we questioned them on how they made it to the house so quickly, what with having to take the winding turns and the not-road and having the road to Matanzas closed. They looked at us funny and said they encountered none of those things. NONE. They simply followed the email Isa had sent and it got them there perfectly. Of course it did. But the closed road - how did they avoid that? They had no idea, but the road wasn't closed by the time they got there. Of course it wasn't.
But the point is we all made it. In one piece and in great moods. Now we just needed to sit back and enjoy this view for the rest of the night. Tomorrow we would hit the beach and do a full on Thanksgiving dinner!
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