Category: Chile and Patagonia 2016

Date Explored: January 27, 2016

After recovering from three long flights to get to Santiago, including a 9-hour overnight flight, on Wednesday morning our foursome was picked up by the always cheerful Antonio from Private Tours Chile for a half-day tour of Santiago and a visit to Emiliana Organic Vineyards in the Casablanca Wine Valley. Our visit to Emiliana was the first of four vineyard visits over two days. If you’re thinking about touring around Santiago, be sure to check out Leo Cuzmar’s site. He’s the guy in charge of Private Tours Chile and they do a great job, but I found it a little difficult, after hearing about Leo’s business on Trip Advisor, to find the website. So now that I’ve provided it, bookmark it!

Let me say again that Antonio was amazing. Friendly, helpful, always a smile on his face, chock-full of information, the kind of guy you want to take to lunch (and we did). The half-day city tour of Santiago was just enough for me, especially considering that this was our third time in South America. I liked what Antonio showed us of Santiago, but really we were itching to get to wine country, and I don’t even like most wines. But I wanted to spread my wings, try to educate my taste buds, and my comrades were already way ahead of me in that department.

Before we could proceed to the tasting, however, we had to tour the vineyard. Emiliana employs a lot of different methods to protect their grapes, including growing flowers and shrubs that pests will attack before getting to the vines, keeping llamas to “mow” the lawn, and employing tons of chickens to eat the insects.

The Emiliana vineyard we visited doesn’t do any wine production. That was carried out elsewhere. So when you visit, you’re pretty much focused on the vineyard. The wine house, whatever you might call it (are we picking up my ignorance here?) was empty when we had our tasting. I enjoyed the tasting very much. I’m just not meant to quaff four glasses of wine in short order. Not to worry, the other members of my troupe were very, um, adept at picking up the slack for me.

The cheese was very, very good.

Everyone was very happy following this tour. We had already figured out that Chileans eat “lunch” late by North American standards. Our guide Antonio suggested we stop at a little local Casablanca eatery en route to our hotel in Vina del Mar, on the Pacific Ocean. We all had Pastel de Choclo, also known as Corn Pie, a hot casserole of chicken, boiled egg, raisins, ground beef and olives, topped with corn. It was excellent and hearty, but the portions were huge! (This was also going to become a recurring theme. Chileans don’t scrimp on wine or food portions. Honestly, you can get away with splitting a meal easily).

In Vina del Mar, we stayed at an old hotel on the rocks, right down by the water, called The Oceanic. I don’t know about you, but I like some character in my hotels, so we usually go for “boutique hotels,” and during this trip we really tried to mix it up. I don’t have any photos of The Oceanic, but you can check out their website. Or admire this sunset, taken from the balcony of our room:

 

It’s been a few trips since I did any travel blogging. The last time was Galapagos, I believe, 2012. Since then, my husband and I have traveled to China, Australia and Cuba, but for various and sundry reasons (beginning with the death of a family member in the days upon our return from China in 2013) I didn’t get around to it. Too bad, because I love organizing my memories this way, but blogging about travel when a loved one has just died seems in poor taste.

Fast forward to this year–we’ve recently returned from what we are looking upon as the “last” of our “big” adventures. The Aus trip was 4 weeks and so followed this year, a marathon of a holiday that took us from Santiago, Chile down to Patagonia and ending up in Buenos Aires, Argentina. For the most part, I’m going to let the photos speak for themselves (let’s see how good I am at that).

It took 2 days to travel from B.C. via Calgary and Houston to Santiago, Chile, including an overnight stay in Calgary so we wouldn’t stress about missing the next day’s flight due to winter weather. We stayed in Santiago two nights, at a gem of a place called the Matildas. It’s in a pretty old neighborhood of Santiago, but what charm!

Over the next four weeks, I would learn that when a Chilean menu says “avocado and hearts of palm,” that’s exactly what you’ll get. Nothing extra. I once ordered a salad to share with my husband that was described as “tomato, onion and Something Else.” Alas, I can not recall what the Something Else was, but dang if the salad contained tomato, onion and Something Else, and that was it. If you want a mixed salad, you have to order carefully. Because a description of “lettuce” will net you lettuce and only lettuce.

I also ate tongue this first night, just a bite, nothing crazy. We traveled with my sister-in-law and her dh. He ordered the tongue, so I had a taste. Not bad. If I hadn’t known I was eating tongue I might have barely noticed the spongy texture (texture can make or break food for me; I’ve never claimed to have sophisticated tastes). BILly claims his palate is much more adventurous than mine, but really I have more advanced taste buds capable of discerning a tongue from a rump (but that’s a debate best left for another time).

Our Fearless Foursome hit the sack early (11 p.m. or so, early by South American standards) because the next morning a guide was picking us up for a half-day city tour and transporting us to the Casablanca wine valley, where we visited four wineries in two days. A lovely time was had by all, but I’m pretty sure I’m the only one who remembers….