This is a post to say thank you to all the people who made our trip to Chile special, fun or interesting in any way. I may have forgotten someone, but here’s a list of specific people who we met/knew/hung out with while we were there and how they helped make our trip better (in no particular order):

• Emily and Rodolfo (and Lola!) — I met Emily randomly at a tech party here in San Francisco almost 2 years ago. She and Rodolfo (her fiacé) were excellent fun to hang out with and we really enjoyed getting to know them. Rodolfo was also our wonderful tour-guide when we went riding with La Biciclete Verde. Thank you for introducing us to Handball, and also melon con vino! I hope you enjoyed the Vodka Watermelon 😉 I’ll have to forgive Emily for keeping her blog on BlogSpot and not WordPress.com I guess 😉 Lola is their super-cute dog who is an adopted stray. She’s awesome, and Rodolfo has taught her some cool tricks as well.
• Jorge and friends — I was connected up with Jorge because he’s one of the organizers for WordCamp Chile. Something in common is a great start, and we got along really well. We ended up spending a bunch of time with Jorge and also got to meet his friends Paloma and Felipe who were great as well. Paloma in particular is gorgeous and a lot of fun! Jorge shared a delicious bottle of wine with us on our roof-top, and then an even more delicious one in his apartment on the night of Piñera’s victory as the new Chilean President. He also was generous enough to drop us off at the airport on our last day in Chile.
• Juan — Juan is the other organizer of WordCamp Chile, who I was also connected up to through Automattic. He took us on a bit of a walking tour of central Santiago, and also for a wonderful, authentic dinner at Doña Tina. We didn’t get too much chance to hang out with him later in the trip, but it was great to meet him and learn a lot more about Chile from him.
• Ann — I think I figured that I (personally) was a 5th-step removed introduction to Ann, but she was still super-friendly and welcoming to us both. She is a friend of a friend of Robin’s cousin’s girlfriend 🙂 We only got to see her once, but it was a fun night at the California Sports Cantina (pub). I think she’s back here in the US now, trying to sort out another job in South America somewhere, so best of luck Ann!
• Laura and friends — Robin met Laura in her Spanish classes, and we got to spend a couple of nights out with her and a few of her friends. The night we spent in Bellavista was particularly fun, despite the creepy guy who was obsessed with Robin (and the street dog who protected us from him!). I hope their travels continue to treat them well!
• Pastor — Our tour guide for 2 day-trips, Pastor was quite the character. He was a really nice guy who seemed to be genuinely passionate about what he does, which is all too rare these days. I wish him the best of luck with his endeavors, both business and personal.
• Sophie — I met Sophie on our trip to the Andes, but Robin knew her from her Spanish classes. It was fun to meet another Aussie (she’s from Alice Springs) and it sounded like she was having quite a trip. She’s down in Valdivia (I think) now, working at a hostel, so I hope things are going well for her (and that her Spanish is coming along!).
• Fay — Fay was the the only other person on the bicycle tour we did with Rodolfo/La Biciclete Verde. She was a lovely English woman, and joined us for lunch at Tio Willy’s. We were supposed to meet up again later but then I got sidetracked on our emails and forgot to reply, so it didn’t happen. Sorry Fay!
• Max and family/friends — We met Max and his mother, grandmother and Aunt on our New Year’s Eve trip to Valpo/Viña. We caught up with Max again to spend the afternoon drinking beers and snacking at Patio Bellavista, then the evening drinking more beer at the Bierfest. It was a great time! We tried to connect up again one more time for dinner, but our schedules didn’t work out so it never happened. Hopefully Max will make it over to the US at some point and we’ll meet up again!
• Aida and Simon — The Swedes! Simon and Aida were on our wine tour in Colchagua and were the only other English-speakers there, so we hung out and chatted all day. We also exchanged numbers and met up for dinner and drinks later which was good fun. Simon used to be a UN soldier, but has now moved on from that. Aida’s parents are Chilean but live in Sweden (which is where they met, obviously). We got to meet some of Aida’s friends who were also there, studying the same course as her. Unfortunately they got food poisoning while they were up North so we didn’t get to see them again before they (and we) left Chile.
• Jeff and Philip — We met both of these guys (not traveling together, just putting them together here because we met them at the same time) on our day trip to Valpo with Pastor, and both were really interesting characters with interesting stories. Jeff was traveling around South America, while Philip was a Dutch journalist, living in Brasil. Thanks for making the day even more interesting!