Small Mammals, Big World: Earthquake!!

We got to meet Juan's family on 7/13! They were all so nice to us and his nephews Andres and Brandon were so fun! Turns out 6 and 7 year old boys are the same all around the world- they play video games and never want to eat their food. His family has houses right next to each other, and Juan is working on building another house for him to live in with his mom. They have 3 dogs- one very nice poodle mix, one very timid but beautiful collie mix and then some kind of shepherd mix that wags it's tail at us but was not friendly and even beats up the other dogs if he's not tied up. The food was delicious as usual- we had a bean soup and salad and goat cheese and of course olives.

But now to get to the earthquake!!! The night before I had woken up to the whole room rumbling but it may have only lasted 15 seconds or something. I whispered to the other girls but they weren't awake, and I was half asleep so later I thought that I dreamed the whole thing. I often think I experience weird things like that at night at really I'm just imagining it. No one mentioned it the next day so I figured it was nothing. After lunch with Juan's family he was driving us all to the beach when he turned to me and asked if I felt the earthquake the previous night!!! I literally screamed and looked back to the other girls because I thought I was going crazy! There was a 5.6 earthquake at 3am. I'm glad I experienced that because Megan has been living in Chile off and on and has always slept through the earthquakes! It was scary that evening though because there was another earthquake in Iquique where some of Juan's family lives and that can be dangerous because of tsunamis. In Fray Jorge we are protected in Fray Jorge by the mountains.

So we made it to the beach (after stopping to hold baby goats-I will have to post pics later), and it was so great! My family was in California on our annual beach trip and I told my brothers we were together that day since we were swimming in the same ocean! It felt so good to float out in the water and of course the salty smell of the ocean always makes me happy. Juan pointed out a lot of cool birds by the ocean, and the Rio Limari that meets up with it.

There was a very young lamb with it's mom by the baby goats!

We liked the baby goats so much the first time that Juan took us to see more at his buddy's farm on the way back!

The next day we went to Tongoy for seafood with Juan, Alberto and Victor (people that come to work in the park from time to time). We had empanadas with shrimp, scallop and some kind of fish. I also had seafood soup that was amazing.