Concha y Toro Vineyards

Jarrett was up early to see if we could get any tour for the day, but there was nothing available. Most of the tours were 2 to more days of travelling, or they required at least 4-5 people. Well, there were only the two of us. We tried something else for tomorrow but no luck... the max we did was to put our names in a list in the case more people showed up. Only in the end of the day we would know if tomorrow we would do something or not. At least the lady at the reception this time was a little bit more helpful than the other guy. For today she told us we could go by ourselves to a vineyard nearby to do their wine tour. So there we went!!

At the vineyard

We left the hostel at about 1.30pm, as the tour would start at 3.10pm. We followed the direction the lady gave us, which read: take the metro to station A, then take the bus A,B,C or D and stop at Concha Y Toro, which should take about 5 minutes from the metro. Well, we took the metro until the station and when leaving the station we waited for one of the buses. We caught one of them and after paying the fee, which you pay to the driver, I asked him to let us know when the stop for the concha y toro was. Well, first mistake: we got the right bus on the wrong side of the street. The man was really kind to stop right away and give our money back!! Then we walked a little and after asking for direction we hop in another bus and this time it was right. I asked the same thing: for the driver to let us know where to stop at. Second mistake: I didnt sit close to the driver's sight, which probably helped him to forget about us! So, after we are thru several vineyards, a man (just a random man) touches Jarrett's shoulder (and left his fingerprints on the t-shirt as well, he was a little dirty) and asked us where we were going, because we seemed a little confused since we were already in the bus for about 15 minutes, and when we tell him he says: Oh, but we already passed that ages ago. So I go chat with the driver (who was smoking, despite the "smoke is prohibited" sign right over his head, and driving way too fast for those roads conditions) and he is like: Ohhhhh.... so he stops the bus just right there on the road and we are all sitting inside the bus waitingfor something... not only us, but everybody who was inside the bus was also waiting (they had to be pissed at us), until another bus came, in the opposite direction, and the smoky driver stopped the other bus and put us in it and this time he told the driver where to go.... we made to the Concha y Toro at 3.15pm!

At the vineyard

We had more fun going to the vineyard than actually being there... what a stupid tour! We got there, watched a short introduction movie, walked 2 minutes with a cocky guide, and sighted the Concha y Toro house where many years ago somebody lived there (I could barely hear the guide), then we stopped for our first wine tasting. Pretty good actually. But, just figure that we had breakfast at 10am, and we were not even close on having lunch.... oh, and by the way, it had to be high 70's degrees....so you can figure how well wine would do to us at that time.... off to the second and third tasting.... we didnt see any wine processing or anything about how to make wine... the guide didnt teach us about wine or anything.... so after about 40 minutes we were done...and they were all happy in giving us as gifts two wine glasses from Concha y Toro...now tell me, how the heck two backpackers are supposed to carry wine glasses without breaking them??? yeah......(they actually didnt break, and they made it all the way to Australia as a gift for our hosts)

At the vineyard

So on the way back we got the right bus and metro and were back about 6pm. We walked back thru the main bar road in Bella Vista again, but this time I spotted this patio which had many nice restaurants and shops. We were so mad we didnt see this yesterday night because our dinner could had been a lot better! So we stopped for a short non-alcoholic drink and decided to go back there for dinner later.... really nice place, called Patio Bella Vista.

At the vineyard

Good wine

The vines

The vines

At the vineyard

At the vineyard

At the vineyard

One of their specialties

At the vineyard

At the vineyard

the devil from Casillero del Diabo

At the vineyard