Last Thursday, the boys were off of school as it was "Teacher's Day." We decided to use the day off to explore a side of town called Peñalolén, which is about 30 min southeast of us with no traffic. The first place we explored was called the Bahá'í Temple. The temple is a house of worship for the Bahá'í Faith, which "teaches the essential worth of all religions and the unity of all people." The temple is open to all faiths and backgrounds and was inaugurated in 2016 as the continental temple for the Bahá'í Faith in South America. There are many other temples around the world.
When you're visiting the temple, inside you're supposed to be completely silent. Of course, that's not the case when they have their pray services, which I think they hold every Sunday. But, apparently musical instruments are never allowed. No idea why.
All Bahá'í Temples are circular and nine-sided. This one has nine entrances as well as nine spiraling paths outwards into nature. It's almost like a lotus flower and evokes this really lovely, nature filled feeling. The founder of this faith wrote "O people of the world! Build ye houses of worship throughout the lands in the name of Him Who is the Lord of all religions. Make them as perfect as is possible in the world of being, and adorn them with that which befitteth them, not with images and effigies. Then, with radiance and joy, celebrate therein the praise of your Lord, the Most Compassionate." Nice. The writing at the apex of the building says "O Thou Glory of the Most Glorious" in Arabic and is the only iconography in the whole place.
View of the temple from above with the lovely spiral paths and gardens.
After the Bahá'í Temple, we went to the Parque Natural Quebrada de Macul. A quebrada is like a ravine, and the Macul is the name of a creek. It was a nice nature area where you can hike to a few nice creek access points. It is also the trailhead for a few other much longer hikes. Our main goal was to find bugs for Rosie to eat, so we were going slow, turning over rocks. We met another dad and son with a similar mission, bug finding, and the boys quickly became fast friends. The dad was super knowledgeable as well, which was useful as some of the bugs we found we had never seen before and looked prehistoric.
Itty bitty scorpion! No, we did not take this home.
Can't say I have ever seen a bug like this before. Doesn't bite, just looks bizarre.
The boys had a great time playing around in the river. We also saw a fox right in this same area. Super cool.
They blend in pretty well, but look right in the middle of the photo below, and you'll see 5 friends totally submerged except for their heads in a little pool in the river. The water is pretty cold though, no thermal pools here!
On a side bar, Drew has decided to grow out his hair into a man bun, since he has no corporate obligations at the moment. He still needs to use bobby pins but he's close. No time like the present!
Just a cute picture of Avery at a recent asado we hosted.
