Gringos de Marimán

As in the US, Chile celebrated a holiday this past week. Nothing to do with the 4th of July here, slightly different focus. Instead we took time off for the fiesta de San Pedro y San Pablo. We saw some reports of hot and humid weather in the northern hemisphere, but here in Pucón the ski lifts on the volcano opened for the season with an abundance of snow and skiers.

With only a 4 day work week we weren't expecting as much progress, however the Madmass workers surprised us by showing up on Sunday to install the vidrio in the windows and doors. We arrived in the afternoon to find most of the work done.

We did have a chance to watch some of the installation process which involved positioning the glass, caulking the edges, and installing the trim. But we spent most of the time wandering around admiring the finished look and imagining how much we'll enjoy the vistas while sitting in our house. By Tuesday afternoon, the crew had completed the installation.

I should mention that we're not just installing glass, but termopaneles, that is double-paned glass with a sealed chamber of air between each pane. I'm pleased to find a topic appropriate for everyone, regardless of whether you're enjoying a sweltering northern summer or a wet and frigid southern winter. These termopaneles prevent warm air from escaping out the windows in winter, while blocking warm air from entering in summer. The insulation factor is more than twice the level of regular glass, about the same as a brick wall. The termopaneles also block condensation from outside. Termopaneles still share one notable feature of glass, fragility, and the Madmass crew did have one small accident. Even so, I'm pleased to say we didn't break the first window ourselves. Don't worry, they replaced this cracked termopanel within a couple of days.

Inspired by the window installation, we decided to tackle one of our long-planned projects - planting trees along the border of our parcela. We visited one of the nerby viveros and loaded the back of the car with 38 arboles nativos. We chose 3 species that we felt would make up a good cerco vivo or living fence between our property and our neighbors. Since we chose nativos we shouldn't have to spend much time caring for them after the first year or so. Here you can see the gringo viejo tackling the first hole. Thanks to our abundant rainfall the ground was pretty soft. That reminds me, I'm sure you Marylanders know that the time to plant nativos is during the months without R's.

Forget the gringo, you can't help but notice that beautiful door on the terraza in the background.

Hopefully I didn't disturb the roots too much. This picture also provides a look at the 3 species we're planting: Coigue - the tree in hand, Notro - the tall spindly one with the long thin leaves, and Arrayan, the bushy type in the right foreground. I'll try to add a separate blog entry about trees in the future, but for now you may want to look at this Chilean native tree website for more information (sorry, Spanish only).

Here's a shot of our first tree planted. Observant viewers will note that by the time I returned to take this photo the crew had added plywood around the door.

I toiled on throughout the week - surprisingly Cyndy found she had other things to take care of. Twenty trees later we had the beginnings of our cerco vivo.

Let's quickly move on since I'm late as usual. As you saw on the terraza, the crew added lots of plywood around the outside of the casa. Moving from the dormitorio, ...

around the backside, ...

along the garaje, ...

and finally the section above the back windows, all entablado.

With time to spare, Juan and Leo prepared to add another concrete step up to the pasillo. You can see Jack Reed waiting to add a footprint to the finished surface.

Of course there's always time to construct a fossa or two (part of the sewer).

What else? Well, No sense in having termopaneles without adding lots of insulation to the walls, so the guys began to add a 2nd layer inside the dormitorio.

As I walked through the casa at the end of the week I spent quite some time gazing out the ventanas. The view was nice, but more importantly I wanted to soak up some of that solar warmth. Hopefully next winter we'll be a lot more comfortable in a nice warm casa.

As you can see below, the kittens should have no problem adapting to the sunny winter days.

Even the nocturnal voodoo chile knows that a sunny spot should be savored. Don't forget the sunscreen. Hasta la proxima!!!