Andes, Frontside and Back:
Our Cabaña at El Medina
Portillo : Argentina Highway : Lonquimay : El Medina : Las Araucarias : Llaima : Villarica : Chillan
September, 2007
At this point of our trip, we had grown comfortable with pulling up to a roadside set of cabañas late at night and taking whatever they had to offer. I was used to cold showers and beds with sheets so thin that you could clearly see through them to the mattress—which, generally, is not a good thing to see.
When we pulled up to El Medina it was instantly obvious that this place was different. I'm not just talking about how the second I got our of the car I was attacked by a posse of twelve small dogs while Choriza and Fu laughed safely from inside the vehicle. The difference was the dog's master and owner of El Medina, Emilio. He eventually called off the dogs and gave us a tour of his little bit of paradise that he'd built at the foot of the Andes. An Italian/French expatriate, he came to South America to create a more simple, fufilling life more in tune with the land... And he's doing a beautiful job of it!
There were two cabañas, and they were beautiful. They had a very European rustic cottage feel to them and were built entirely by hand. Each door was rough hewn, slotted and pegged together. The chandelier was a recycled tandem ox harness with candle-holding wine glasses attached with leather straps. The masonry seemed not to follow a pattern so much as the bricklayer's creative mood at the moment they were layed. Everywhere you looked was a new pleasure, a new display of human handwork, ingenuity and craftsmanship.
And staying there was cheap, too!
Check out more about El Medina at their website: www.elmedina.com
Our dining room with the huge breakfast Emilio and his wife
made for us.
The
master bedroom and it's gorgeous masonry.
Emilio, one of his llamas, and Fu. He also had an alpaca, which was on my list of "things to see while in South America."
Emilio had a little bit of everything: Pigs, chickens, lambs, llamas,
an alpaca and lots of dogs.
See more of South America
Portillo : Argentina Highway : Lonquimay : El Medina : Las Araucarias : Llaima : Villarica : Chillan
© 2008 foothillfreak : : Go with da fro : :