Zapallar

What a weekend! Saturday morning, I woke up around 10 with no plans for the entire weekend. Looking forward to the freedom of doing whatever I want, I got on the phone to see what my friends were up to. Todd was heading to Zapallar, a beach 2 hours from Santiago, 45 minutes later, so I thought – why not?! In no time, I was on my way to the beach with three friends with plans to stay just for the day. Plans were the one thing I was avoiding this weekend though, so of course that had to change!

View from Chiringuito, Zapallar, Chile

We stopped for lunch at a great place on the coast called Chiringuito to enjoy some of the local seafood. The view from the deck of the restaurant reminded me of a photograph of the Amalfi Coast. We ended up staying the night in Zapallar at this amazing old mansion overlooking the water that is owned by a famous Chilean polo player. He hosted a big party sponsored by Johnny Walker that had passed appetizers and an open bar. Sunday morning, the owner of the house invited us to his polo match at the Cachagua Polo Grounds – where they had another open bar!

Polo Match

 I laid off the champagne this time though, because Carol, Neelie and I were going to keep the spontaneity going by scuba diving after the game. Diving in Chile was a box on my bucket list that I needed to check off. Check it off I did! The visibility wasn’t great and the water was coooooooooooold! I am glad I got to do it, especially at the low price of $80, but I don’t need to go back into 12°C water again to look at the fishies that I enjoy eating so much in Chile. We saw some really cool starfish and rock shrimp. The dive master reached out and let one of them creep up onto my fingers.  What started out as a lazy weekend with nothing planned turned into quite the adventure!