Shaken, not stirred....

Hi everyone. Thank you for your concern regarding our wellbeing. We are better than good, with stories to tell.
When the earth began it´s trembling, the night before last, we were snuggled into El Furgòn at our friend´s land outside Pucón. When I first awoke, my groggy mind thought, ¨someone is shaking the van!?¨Then I awoke Ryan, thinking, ¨maybe a big bear is shaking the van!?¨Neither of those first two were logical explanations, so we slowly realized that what we were feeling was a real-live earthquake. El Furgón was vigorously shaking and rocking on her suspension.
We began assessing our situation. With our heads raised off our pillows, we were looking out the open back door of the van at the surrounding landscape. The big tree in our view was shaking and bending as if moved by a strong wind, but the trees near us were small and unthreatening. We were near the river, but far enough away and on high enough ground that we felt safe. We were basically parked in the middle of a wide, flat meadow, immediately surrounded by immature trees. We couldn´t have been in a safer place. Realizing this, we were able to actually enjoy and marvel at the movements of the earth´s crust. Holy shit! It was amazing. The ground shook vigorously for a few minutes. That´s a long time. The trees were swaying and bending like they´d been in training for such a challenge. El Furgón heaved and rocked, jolted and swayed. Every bird and dog in the countryside was cawing or barking, and we just felt, watched, listened, awestruck, until it subsided.

This is where we were parked during El Terremoto.

There were many after-shocks, too. I didn´t fall back to sleep until hours afterward. It was just so interesting!

My sketch from the middle of the night, of the experience.

On our way back to town, we were more aware of the smoking volcano than we were before.

The story continued to unfold throughout the day. When we returned to town in the morning, we were curious about what we would find. We didn´t know if it was a big earthquake or a small one. We didn´t know anything except our experience.

Pucón appeared to be unscathed, despite a lack of electricity. Many of the Chileans, however, were pretty rattled. A lot of the people who vacation here come from the region around Concepción, which was the epicenter, from what I understand. We found out that we had experienced a 7.0 earthquake here, and that it was an 8.5 at the center. Almost unbelievable. Most of the businesses stayed closed. People were rapidly leaving town, despite it being Saturday morning. The lines for gas ultimately made us decide to stay in Pucón another day, rather than heading south toward the coast, which had been our plan.

The amazing thing is that we had a wonderful day. Our friends who work on the river didn´t have to work (oddly, it had a ¨snow-day¨vibe). The weather was as clear and warm and calm as it has been (all summer, according to them). By the end of the day, we were referring to it as ¨Earth Day¨because the earth had, once again, stopped us all in our tracks and reminded us to appreciate her beauty, and her power.

Hanging out on Lago Villarica with the kayaking boys. There´s LJ!

As you can see, we are better than good down here in Pucón. The internet is working again. We have a full tank of diesel that we didn´t have to wait in line for.

Last night we camped on slightly higher ground, with this view of the volcano. It was glowing orange at the top all night long. My attempts to capture it on film failed, but use your imagination. It was AMAZING!
Our plan has been to head farther south, for a while, before working our way back north along the coast. From what we have heard, this is still a really good plan, because most of the damage is north of here. It will be interesting to see what we find when we leave here. We will keep you posted.

Again, thank you all for your concern. Know that we are doing extremely well, that we are on a great adventure, and that we are making memories that we hope to share with you.

Dancing with the earth,
Jess & Ryan