Si la amistad es un tesoro

Somewhere between the hot sauce and the vows, I nearly turned the bride purple.

Hooked on these humans

Ainura is a fabulous woman from Kazakhstan, and we found each other online because we had both trekked from Asia to Latin America. That is a short list of people, and we were both on it.

For our first meet-up we brought the menfolk: Jay, Mati, and Freed, our adult adopted son. It was an evening of laughs, big plans for brunches, and a real connection over hot sauce. We went home hooked on these humans.

The next time we all gathered in one place, it was Santiago, and they were getting married.

The guest list needed a pin map

Theirs was a Chilean Kazakh fusion wedding, and you needed a pin map of the world to keep track of how many cultures, languages and people had come for these two, every one of them remarkably in love with the couple. Chile was a new-to-us country. We left with an overflowing glass of new memories.

A secret agent suitcase mission

The adventure started late one night, when Renata and I ran a secret agent suitcase mission with the bride's traveling family.

Then the São Paulo ladies' crew (Jennifer, Renata and me) flew to Santiago. The menfolk, Quinn and Jay, would follow after the work week.

A bachelorette fit for a rom-com

The bachelorette party belonged in an American rom-com, starring some of the most fun and joyous women from around the planet. We went wine tasting in style at Concha y Toro, then moved on to partying in organized chaos, which is how we came very close to turning the bride purple with holi powder before her big day.

Rooftops, a funicular, and "the oasis"

The next day, Jenn and I took our coffee on rooftops. Then we rode the funicular to the top of Cerro San Cristóbal, the hill that rises about 300 meters over the city, for drinks of mote con huesillo with views to match.

From there it was a hilarious adventure by cable car to "the oasis," a public pool on the hill, before we rejoined Renata and Erin for more coffee and some shopping in the city.

Peaches with the bones left in

I went home describing mote con huesillo as apricots and barley. It is neither, and the truth is better.

A huesillo is a whole peach, dried in the sun with its stone still inside. The name comes from hueso, bone, so a huesillo is a "little bone," after the pit. Halve the peach and take the stone out before drying, and you have made something else, an orejón. Chile has been drying peaches this way since colonial times, when the sun was how you kept summer fruit edible for months.

Mote is wheat. The grains are boiled in an alkaline bath (traditionally lye made from wood ash; in factories, a weak caustic soda solution) until the tough outer skin loosens and can be rubbed and washed away. What is left is a plump, peeled, chewy kernel. The word itself comes from Quechua, for cooked and husked grain.

To bring them together, the huesillos soak overnight and then simmer with sugar or chancaca (unrefined cane sugar) and cinnamon until the fruit is soft and the water has become an amber syrup. Cooked mote goes in the bottom of a tall glass, two or three peaches go on top, then the syrup, served very cold. You drink the juice, eat the wheat with a spoon, and then deal with the peach, pit and all.

It is sold from carts and stands all over the country, and there are several at the summit of San Cristóbal, which is where Jenn and I learned all of this the delicious way.

Pisco sours and the welcome dinner

The welcome dinner was just as wonderful: a chance to celebrate the bride and groom with the whole travel crew, over pisco sours and piscolas.

Up the Cajón del Maipo

When Jay arrived, we headed to the Cajón del Maipo to see the Andes and the impossibly turquoise water of the El Yeso reservoir, in one of the most picturesque spots we could find. We ate the freshest empanadas at a log-cabin roadside stand and walked through the old train tunnel.

That tunnel is what remains of a little railway with an unusual employer. A narrow-gauge line once ran up this canyon from Puente Alto to El Volcán. The government began building it in 1906, the Chilean Army took it over, and it opened in 1914. That is why it is still remembered as the Ferrocarril Militar, the military railway. It carried miners and farmers, and over the decades more and more weekend tourists heading into the mountains. The whole line, from the city's edge to the high valley, had ten stations, twenty bridges and exactly one tunnel. The trains stopped in the 1980s and the tracks are gone. The tunnel stayed, which is how we got to walk through it.

Then we hurried back to get wedding-ready.

The wedding

The wedding itself was a wonder. Mati and Ainura knocked the traditional wedding dances and attire of both Chile and Kazakhstan out of the park (Mati in a striped huaso poncho and flat-brimmed hat, Ainura in a tall, beaded Kazakh bridal headdress topped with white fur), and the special touches were beautiful. Amazing friends surrounded us, and the dance floor was alive with Latin jams and Bon Jovi. (Apparently, the Chileans really love Bon Jovi.)

The only obnoxious part of the night came when they shared the many countries the guests hailed from. One joyously enthusiastic American whoo-hoo'd so loudly that she shamed the rest of the room, to the great amusement of a very worldly crowd.

Yes. It was me.

Poolside with the Parapan Americans

The adventure ended poolside at our hotel, surrounded by athletes in town for the Parapan American Games, with Erin and Pablo, planning future adventures and taking impromptu naps. It was the first time Santiago had hosted the Pan and Parapan American Games, and the athletes had excellent taste in pools.

If you go

• The funicular. It climbs Cerro San Cristóbal from the Pío Nono entrance in Bellavista, 485 meters of track in about seven minutes. It opened on 25 April 1925, was declared a national Historic Monument in 2000, and still runs on its original machinery. Check hours and fares with Parquemet before you go.
• The cable car. Parquemet's teleférico runs between the Oasis, Tupahue and Cumbre (summit) stations. Oasis is the stop on the Pedro de Valdivia side, which is a fun detail if you are heading to a pool.
• The pool. Piscina Tupahue is 82 by 25 meters, set into the hillside with an artificial waterfall and a view of the city, and it was declared a national monument in 2005. Take the cable car to Tupahue station. The season runs roughly November to mid-March, and adult entry was CLP 7,000 in the 2025 to 2026 season. Opening has been delayed in dry years, so check first.
• Mote con huesillo. Look for the stands at the summit of San Cristóbal. It is a summer and Fiestas Patrias staple, so you will find it on street carts across Santiago too.
• Cajón del Maipo. Plan a full day from Santiago. The tunnel is called Túnel El Tinoco, near San José de Maipo. If you are going up to the high reservoir at El Yeso, the road is generally closed to vehicles from April to August.
• The roll call. If they announce the guests' home countries at a wedding, cheer at a reasonable volume. Learn from me.

Gracias por ser parte de mi fortuna

Chile was beautiful. We are tremendously humbled to know so many great humans.

I opened my original post in Spanish: si la amistad es un tesoro, gracias por ser parte de mi fortuna. If friendship is a treasure, thank you for being part of my fortune. It started with two women who had made the same long move and an evening over hot sauce. It ended in a room that needed a pin map to keep track of everyone who loved them. That is a fortune.

Congrats, Mati and Ainura, on a lovely event and a lifetime of adventures together (and with us) to come.

Adiós, for now.