Valdivia, Valdivia ... Even though we've already gone away I still think about it. This name keeps telling me something, it constantly buzzes me in the mind but I can't put it in focus. Then here it is, hacking on the internet I find myself in front of Pedro de Valdivia, one of the Spanish conquistadors, indeed one of the two lieutenants of Francisco Pizarro to give him honor (although nowadays in those missions we can not say anything really honorable), remembered as founder of the city of Santiago de Chile, La Serena, Concepción and, not by chance, Valdivia.

But it was not all this historical relationship that I remembered, no, it was his lover Inés de Suárez, strong and courageous woman who accompanied him for about ten years, before and during the conquest of Chile. Have I studied the history so well and thoroughly? No, only that Inés, one of the few women remembered in the conquest of America, is the protagonist of the novel "Inés of My Soul" by Isabel Allende, wonderful Chilean author. The writer tells the incredible life of this woman, a life full of love, struggle and passion. It is a historical novel, based on real facts and the harsh occupation of the Spanish conquistadors.

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A young Spanish dressmaker of humble origins, Ines embarks on the new world to find her husband by discovering that he died at sea shortly before his arrival in Peru. But she decides to not return as a distraught widow in Spain but to settle in Cuzco, where she finds the passionate love of Pedro de Valdivia and together they leave the country to go to the unexplored Chile, with the aim of colonizing new lands for the Spanish king.

Inés proves to be a strong and resistant fighter, able to fight as much as a man both at war and in love... I do not tell you the end because, if you have not already done so, I invite you to read this book rich of adventure that tells us, although in fictional form, the conquest and formation of the Kingdom of Chile. Since we're traveling through these lands, I feel like in someway I am following Ines' footprints.