Gringos de Marimán

We celebrated Santa Semana this week which also meant a short construction week (Good Friday is a festivo in Chile). Monday and Tuesday the workers continued cutting and bending more fierro and wiring all the enfierradura together. Finally on Tuesday afternoon I noticed a new activity starting. If I didn't know better I would have thought the pinhead had been chewing away yet another piece of wood. No, not the pinhead, Jose drilled these holes at the base of the moldaje to make way for the plumbing in the baños.



Looks like we have enough iron in place to withstand even Chilean terremotos. I think we're just about ready for another round of concrete.



We must be ready, the hawks have decided to check-in on the action.



You'll be disappointed to discover that I don't have more photos of the concrete trucks and the guys struggling with the loaded wheelbarrows. Where was I? I think I was assisting the DirectTV installers by trying to distract the chewing pinhead. The timing was perfect since the Masters started on Thursday. We even watched Barry Zito lose his first game with the Giants. Needless to say, Cyn is a happy camper (but only figuratively now).


On Thursday the site featured the lovely gray of drying concrete as the crew began to remove the moldaje walls.



They gathered up all the wood and stacked everything for reuse later.



Valdovino, our maestro, made sure the concrete received an adequate dose of water for proper curing.



You can see the plumbing conduit pipes sticking through the walls. We must have some digging, so the crew cleared out the debris and smoothed the floors. Next week they'll start tying in even more fierro for the slab.



I should have a lot more pictures from this week, but I forgot the camera during many of the activities. Claudio and Angela, our neighbors in parcela 6 traveled to Pucón to break ground on their house. They treated us to a wonderful cena (dinner) at the Hotel Antumulal following a beautiful sunset toasted with pisco sours. The Antumulal is famous for having royal visitors. Fortunately, no one asked to check our lineage. Thanks to Claudio, Ronnie and Erwin, the managing pareja extraordinaria, stopped by to welcome us and fill us in on bird watching in the south of Chile.

We also enjoyed a delicious fish almuerzo (lunch) with our profesora Gloria. The pescado vendors sell a lot of seafood during Santa Semana. The cats seemed to perk up for the occasion.

Speaking of perking up, last but far from least, I can report that the pinhead didn't seem phased by losing his crown jewels. We hoped that he would settle down after losing so much testorone, but he chewed up that idea just like everything else.

Feliz Pascua!!!