Santiago

  Santiago, Chile
Monday, October 13, 2008

How time flies!! We've now completed our ten day South Pacific leg and have embarked on our final leg: South America. We arrived in Santiago on Sunday evening after a four hour flight from Easter Island. That Sunday morning before our departure from Easter Island, we woke up and went for breakfast only to find the hotel's breakfast room closed. We informed the manager and he told us that the clock had moved forward an hour in the early hours of Sunday morning so it was 10am, instead of 9am...as our watches showed (there was no Lyn to tell us that summertime had come into effect!!). The manager was kind enough to re-open the breakfast room for us and for a few others who were equally oblivious to the time change. Imagine if our flight to Santiago had been early on Sunday morning! Anyway, just before we landed in Santiago, around sunset, we were treated to wonderful panoramic views of the city and the Andes mountains. It was quite a bit colder as expected - about 12 degrees. Our hotel in Santiago, Hotel Orly (very charming), is situated in Providencia, a vibrant neighbourhood with many restaurants and shops. After we'd checked into the hotel, we went for a stroll and found everything to be closed - it's Sunday - so we ended up having a snack at a Chilean fastfood-type place, the only thing that was open.

The next day, we went for a half day city tour with our guide, Mauricio. He showed us some very cool neighbourhoods in this rather fascinating city. We started off in the oldest parts of the city including my favourite neighbourhood, Concha y Toro. 

Concha y Toro

  This neighbourhood is filled with old mansions, some dating from the mid-19th century, in a variety of styles: Venetian, German, French renaissance, etc...  There were also many neat rows of houses painted in strikingly bright colours - imagine a purple, cobalt blue or yellow house! 

Brightly-coloured houses

  We then continued to the downtown area of the city which is composed of very stately government buildings and broad avenues. We walked around the Plaza de Armas (main square) and visited the magnificent cathedral. 

Santiago cathedral

  We also got a peek into one of Santiago's famous coffee bars 'with legs'. These are places where coffee is served by skimpily-dressed waitresses; some of these bars are pretty decent and some are downright nasty. After a quick coffee at one of the more decent coffee bars, we moved on to the more modern part of town: Providencia and Las Condes. This is where the financial district, with its gleaming towers and trendy eateries, is located as well as the main shopping malls. We dropped by at one of the larger malls and did some shopping and I got myself a haircut. The hairdresser asked me how I wanted my hair to be cut. I said 'karta blanco' (a direct translation from 'carte blanche' in French, which basically means I'm giving you permission to do whatever you want to do); I'm not sure if it's a term that's also used in Spanish but she understood and laughed. She said 'korto' or something like it (I guess that meant short) and I nodded.....big risk but I like the result - she obviously knew what she was doing! And I look like I'm 25 again! ;-)

The following day, Mauricio picked us up at 9am and off we went on our wine tour in the Aconcagua Valley. The drive to the valley, after we left the city limits, was beautiful: green hills which gradually rose to the foot of the imposing snow-capped Andes mountains. That's one of the things I love about Santiago: everywhere you look, you're never too far from a prime view of the Andes (on a clear day that is, because the city's usually shrouded in smog - the city, very much like Mexico City, is located in a 'bowl' surrounded by mountains so the smog has nowhere to go). After more than an hour, we got our first (and only) glimpse of Mt. Aconcagua (at almost 7,000 meters, the Americas' highest peak). We passed the small town of Los Andes and arrived at our first winery, San Esteban. We were greeted by the owner's daughter who gave us a tour around the vineyard, the cellar and the production area - very interesting stuff - before the wine-tasting. 

San Esteban winery

  The red Grand Reserva (a glorious blend of Cabernet Sauvignon, Merlot, Camenere and San Giovese) was just superb. And they export to the Netherlands as well under the In Situ brand. Grand! We got the Dutch importer's name and then continued our tour through the valley to the Errazuriz estate (one of my favourite Chilean wineries), passing by fruit orchards and hectares upon hectares of vineyards. 

Errazuriz winery

  Errazuriz is one of Chile's oldest and most prominent families and they have several wine estates in the valley - we visited the oldest estate. We were first served a very good four-course lunch on their terrace with a view of the vineyards, accompanied by a selection of wines, before being taken on a tour around the estate. Loved it. It was quite amazing - I've been drinking their wines for years and now I finally got to see where those wines come from.

Me and Frits @ Errazuriz

The next morning, we took a taxi to the airport to catch our flight to Punta Arenas, the southernmost city on the American continent, and the gateway to the Patagonia region. I'll tell you all about our Patagonia trip in my next blog (which will be up shortly). I can tell you this now: Patagonia is unbelievably AWESOME!! So don't miss my next blog ok!


Hasta luego,
Keith