Chile Build

R & R

*** Please note...all R & R activities were paid for by the participants and did not come out of any fundraising...***

Now that we're clear on that...our R & R in Pucon was amazing!!!
The town had the mountains, adventure activities and quaintness of Whistler and the lake and nightlife of Grand Bend....

The Grand Pucon Hotel was amazing as you can see from these pictures...

The view from our room....

This one is for Ramona....

Tracy, Lili, Matt, Kristi and Michelle Hydrospeeding..... (it's a form of white water rafting on a boogie board)

Before....

During....

And living to tell about it....

(check out Volcan Villarica in the background...)

The next day, 11 of us climbed up Volcan Villarica...the most active volcano in South America...

Usually you can take a chairlift up part of the way to cut out an hour of the 5 hour climb....but it was too windy...This made for a long and bitter climb up to the first rest station....

The team at the first rest station.......

At this point in the next picture, I felt like I was a character from "Into Thin Air" and had tried to turn around about three times....If I ever get another crazy idea like this, please sit on me until the thought passes...

At the top, at the edge of the crater..... Finally!

The two best parts of the climb were watching the lava spurt out of the crater and sliding down the mountain luge style...both of which I was too busy experiencing to take any pictures...so will post some of the other team members' pictures soon! Here's some thanks to Matt....

Going down was much easier.....

Thank you to Team Chile...Your adventurous spirits and caring attitudes turned this into such an unforgetable experience.... No Lo Peudo Creer!

Kudos to all of you who supported me in this Amazing Adventure.....

Dani...you are truly a master truffle packager...and your laughter kept me going late into the night!

Many thanks to those of you who donated and bought truffles...especially the truffle addicts (you know who you are... Poppe, Pypes and Borman...)

Coming soon to a truffle shop near you...."Africa 2007!"

End of the build....

Today was a busy day as we tried to get as much done as possible on our last day... We got the roof finished, put in the insulation...(which was my suffocating job...) and then put up the drywall...After we celebrated with our Chilean friends....

GiGi and I looking for ET....

Don´t try this at home....

The drywallers...

Fabio and the girls on our team......

Played some soccer with the kids...thanks to all who donated uniforms, shoes and the soccer ball....

Here´s the four Canadians...(plus Lorena)The end of the Day 8 and the end of our build....

Day 7

Day 7
The day started out with Canadian Tattoos... (for everyone except Phil....)

The floors got finished today...finally... and the FloorTeam is exhausted....

Roof was started today.... (no thanks to me....it was enough for me to get up there to pose for the picture....hehe)But I did help finish the siding.....

End of Day 7 ....

Had a great weekend....went touring on Saturday...then off to Villarica ...in the background is the Volcano that we are climbing on Friday....

Sunday night we made it back in time to head to a bar to watch the Superbowl....except the bar was closed.... so they opened it for us and we had the place to ourselves....But even our cheerleading couldn´t help the Seahawks!

Day 6 ....finishing the flooring, putting on the siding and working on the roof...not sure how it will all get done by Wednesday?

Lili and Kristi.....(still smiling after having to cut and recut that piece of wood three times...)

Michelle up on the roof....scary eh? (the eh is for all the Americans on our team who make fun of me everytime I say it....)

Although you can´t see too clearly in this picture.....We have nicknamed our Project Manager....Fabio...he has no idea who Fabio is ...

End of Day 6.....

Day 4 & 5

Day 4

Snuck off for a visit to a nearby Mapuche home today..... I thought Kristi was translating well for me until we were trying to figure out what they were building outside....and she said it was the rotissorie where they were going to cook the dog....

Day 4 was about putting in floors, putting up ceiling beams and digging the sewer system...(ugh)

Okay...so I didn´t actually dig the sewer hole but just jumped in the hole for the picture...hehe

Our fearless leader, Barbara looking after our health and safety..... and not enjoying it at all.....

I love to have partners in Crime....Mary was our ringleader for the water balloon fight.....

Day 5

Today we worked on floors, lugged rocks for the sewer system, started with the siding and put the trusses on the roof...

This one is for Denise in Mississauga....

End of Day 5.....

We have the weekend off...so we´re heading to a museum tomorrow morning, to the mountains in the afternoon and to Villarica on Sunday.....

We only have three more work days left to finish the house....may have to stay longer in Chile...lol

Chile Team Extrordinaire....

This is the green team...otherwise known as Team Canada...(only two of the five are Canadians...but the rest are so nice they get honorary membership....)