As mentioned in a previous post, at this point, our blog is only showing us having fun and only visiting parks, pools, and water parks.  I would say that what we are unintentionally omitting the other 60% of the time where we are all are melting down.  I'd told myself prior to this trip that I wanted to show what it's really like to travel with two kids in a foreign country.  Well that just hasn't happened...... YET!! I am working on figuring out a way to document the crazy times you are not seeing on our blog.  None the less, we are at times having some really fun times.  

In an attempt to provide the kids some fun after hanging out in a condo in Con Con for three days, I searched for a water park in Santiago.  I never thought it would be as cool as it was.  When we pulled up it was like we were pulling up to Wally World.  We had to race from Con Con to make it to the park before it closed at 7:30 pm.  No reservation needed as we were the only ones camping there on Wednesday night.  We were so excited to be able to set up our tent on green grass!!! It's the little things! We also had a sink nearby to clean dishes as well as flushing toilets and hot showers.  I think all told it cost us $85.00 for three nights of camping (with electricity!) and three full days at the water park for three people (Nash had free entry).

The water in the pools was on the cold/frigid side.  However, it was 85 degrees outside so by mid-day it was refreshing!!!  I was blown away to learn that they drain all three pools every night.  These are 3 very LARGE pools.  It appears that they had some sort of natural spring with a small stream flowing right through the property.  The park itself was rather large and had hundreds of picnic tables and BBQ pits and the camping area had 60 camp spots.  

On Thursday and Friday there were only about 400 people at the park, which was nice for being able to go on the big slides many times.  For the two big slides they had signs saying you needed to be 12 yrs or older to go on the slide.  One was a two person tube ride as you will see in the video.  The other one was cascading slide were you laid down on a foam mat.  At points, you'd be going fast enough to catch a little air. Right away Nash said he wanted to go down the big green slide.  He demanded it!!!  We kept on saying sorry buddy you are 10 years too young.  After seeing some other small kids (who appeared to be about 6yrs old at best) go down we decided we should ask if they would let Nash go.  At this point all the park employees knew Nash by name.  The kid is really loud and blonde!!!  Without hesitation they said "sure go for it Nash".  He didn't hesitate once and before he came to a stop he would yell "I want to go again!!".  He must have gone down at least 10 timews.  I should also mention that we didn't see another gringo at the park all three days..  Just the way we like it.  

On the third morning at the campground Tabor found a friend, 5yr old Florecia who was celebrating her 6th birthday.  Her parents were very nice to include our whole family in their celebration which included cake at 9 am and some delicious BBQ later in the day.  We got to spend the morning chatting with our new friends while Tabor and Nash were able to play with Florecia.  We then went to the park with them and had a great time.  As always, it's never fun saying good-bye to our new friends.
 
BTW- During my run to the store to get more food and work on getting our window replaced I made the impulse purchase of two bikes for the kids.  It has proved to be a great decision!!