Tortola

So I was horribly surprised this morning by the appearance of a gigantic spider in my room. I panicked, as is typical for me, but could not choke out the Spanish word for "spider" in time for my host mom to come in and kill it. The word, for your information, is "arana" with an accented "n". I was doubly spooked because my Lonely Planet guide informed me of the black widows present in Chile.

Anyways, as my mom came in my room, she suddenly noticed that there was an egg ("huevito") in the flower basket ("jardin" though it is barely a garden) outside the window of my room. A turtledove (tortolo) had decided to make a nest. I felt kind of sorry that the bird had decided to choose the window outside of my room to make a nest. My host mom was looking forward to having the nest and egg in her flower basket. I know this because in the first week I came here, she and I had a long, in depth conversation about how much she loves the turtledoves that land here and how she watches the eggs everyday as they grow.

The fact that I got an egg is not too much of a surprise to me. The turtledove did greet me early on in Chile. One day, the first week, the bird ran into my window, flapping its wings and scaring me half to death. Turns out that was a sign for "hey, I'm going to nest outside your window now". I'm honestly very happy. I'm really excited to see a little bird.

Here's the bird with an egg beneath.

As for the spider that caused me to notice the bird, my host mom filled my room with Raid so I think that it is probably dead.