As promised…

Sorry for the week-long teaser! It wasn't really intentional – we just ran out of time to write and also had no access to our computer or Internet all week. So, here we go...

1. Getting pulled over by la policia after drinking a bottle of wine - In Santa Cruz we drove out to a lovely dinner in a rural area at a traditional family owned restaurant. We shared a really nice bottle of Montes wine (for $13) and asked the owner/waiter to order for us (meat for raj and fish for me-although I'm eating meat on this trip, I am still ordering fish when possible). This place was a bit too much for me to handle ordering meat anyway because the lamb was cooking over an open fire about 20 ft from our table (picture attached). There is only so much a newly converted vegetarian can handle. After finishing our wine, the owner brought us our complimentary choice of traditional liqueur for dessert. Without thinking much of it, we hopped in the car to try to find our way back to our hotel. We quickly got lost and were driving through the town trying to find our way through a confusing maze of one way streets and lack of street signs. We were not drunk, but we were still pretty freaked out when we got pulled over at a road block! We played the part of the dumb Americans pretty well though and ended up asking the cops directions to our hotel before they could question us at all. Since they didn't speak any English, our tactic worked pretty well.

2. What Santa Cruz Wine Valley is like – very much like California's wine valleys – very warm, sunny, lots of hills, and a strange mix of both lush yet dry terrain. They mostly grow grapes for red wine. We were there during their first week of the harvest, so not only were there beautiful orchards all around, but they were bursting with purple grapes ripe and ready to be picked.

3. Wine tasting by horseback – Our B&B introduced us to a guy named Diego who organizes more adventurous tours of the valley (i.e. mountain biking or horseback riding). We, of course, went for the horseback riding. It ended up being six of us total – Raj, me, Diego, our gaucho, and two girls from Canada. We hoped on our horses around 10:30 am and began a ride through a mix of orchards and steep rocky hills. Our horses were amazing - a mix of the traditional Chilean Criollos and quarter horses. We rode mainly uphill for nearly two hours and then came to a small wood gate. We dismounted and left the horses with the gaucho. Diego guided us through the gate and up some stone steps and we arrived at a beautiful deck overlooking the valley. On the deck was a an old wood wine barrel with a bottle of wine and 4 glasses. This was our first wine tasting! It was so different, and unexpected, and absolutely perfect! The 4 of us shared the bottle (Diego abstained) and some conversation, and then hopped back on our horses and rode back down for another hour or so. It was getting pretty hot, so although I was bummed to say goodbye to my horse, the air-conditioned van that drove us to the next winery (and lunch) was very welcome. The rest of the day followed a more traditional wine tour itinerary. It was a very fun day.

4. GPS getting directions to Santiago airport wrong – Our drive from our hotel in Santiago to Santa Cruz took about 2.5 hours, so we were careful to budget about 4 hours to get to the Santiago airport expecting plenty of time to get lunch and return the rental car. Before we left, we downloaded directions onto my phone. Unfortunately, despite being an International airport, Google maps does not know where the Santiago airport is. We arrived at the location it said was the airport and were more than a bit uneasy to find ourselves in the middle of the city at an office building! To make a long story short(er) we asked directions from a few women on the side of the street and again from a few other drivers (again– difficult due to my pathetic excuse for Spanish) and eventually found our way to the airport just in time rather than significantly early as expected.

5. Raj giving away his burger to the needy – on our way to the Santiago airport, we stopped for lunch along the highway. As we ate outside, a stray dog wandered over to us (obviously, we continue to wear the “we are suckers” signs on our foreheads). We both started putting aside some of our lunch with the intention of giving him some scraps, but Raj decided to go a step farther and actually gave the sweet little guy about a quarter of his burger. Didn't you know that he was worse than me???

6. Charter plane to Palena – Normally to get to the Futaleufu Valley, one would take a plane to Chaiten, but last year, Chaiten was devastated when its volcano erupted. So, instead we flew in an 8 seater to Palena. The flight plan took us over the bay and we were low enough to see the salmon and trout fish farms. Then we reached mountainous terrain that appeared impossible to reach. There were pockets of lakes high in the mountains that were sapphire blue and sometimes emerald green and several glaciers as well. It was quite beautiful. There was also a lot gray due to the volcano's ash everywhere – made the glaciers a very strange color. Then, all of a sudden, we left the mountains behind and entered a valley where we landed smoothly on the single, small runway.

7. Ride to Futaleufu Valley – Our driver, Pato, picked us up at the tiny little airstrip and we began the 2+ hour journey to Futaleufu.  For the first 2 miles or so, it is a paved rode, but after that, the entire way is dirt/gravel. It was a beautiful, if bumpy drive through the valleys and along the rivers. It made me really excited to get out into the wilderness. There were also a few places where new bridges were being built – a sign of how the area is growing and that the road from Palena to Futaleufu is being used so much more now that Chaiten is no longer the first destination.

8. “The Lodge” in the Valley – We arrived around 1:30pm just in time for lunch that is served family style there. I had somewhat high expectations of this place for some reason. I had done the research on this portion of the trip and had the impression that the lodge would be cushy and comfortable and that part of us would not want to be leaving to stay in haciendas and such. However, the lodge was actually more like a hostel with private rooms.  Not the cleanest place I’ve ever stayed and although the staff seemed nice, they weren’t the most helpful we’ve experienced either. It wasn’t until around 5pm that Saturday that we finally found out our itinerary for week when Chris Spellius (owner and former Olympic kayaker) knocked on our door. He came in with Fabian (our fearless guide) and explained that Raj and iI were the only people going on the trip and that they had created a special program for us and that we would be leaving Sunday morning and coming back Friday evening (rather than Monday to Thursday). Also, our first day riding would be the longest – 8 hours!  His main question for us was “Can you handle it???” to which we replied “Sure” even though we had know idea still what exactly we were going to have to handle.

9. Why Tovah is no longer interested in Kayaking – That night at the lodge we learned that everyone else staying there was there to kayak the “Fu” with Chris. The ONLY thing they talked about all night was kayaking. They took turns telling personal stories or horror stories they had heard. They talked about rolling and as far as I was concerned, used so many kayak specific terms that they might as well have been speaking another language. In any case, I realized that I am not crazy enough to attempt the stuff they were talking about and that if I ever get in a kayak again, it will only be a sea kayak. No rapids for me!

10. Our 5 day tour through the mountains that have not been ridden this season (due to volcano eruptions that wiped out a town last year) and staying at haciendas with locals who were notified today via radio that we’d be dropping by.) Okay, forgive us, but we can’t possible update you on the past week in this posting – there is simply too much and it really deserves its own section with lots of pictures. For now, let me just tell you that it was absolutely fantastic, that I have every intention of repeating it several times over the years and I highly recommend it to every one!

10 Things we will tell you about next weekend (after we get back from #10)

1. Getting pulled over by la policia after drinking a bottle of wine

2. What Santa Cruz Wine Valley is like

3. Wine tasting by horseback

4. GPS getting directions to Santiago airport wrong

5. Raj giving away his burger to the needy

6. Charter plane to Palena

7. Ride to Futaleufu Valley

8. “The Lodge” in the Valley

9. Why Tovah is no longer interested in Kayaking

10. Our 5 day tour through the mountains that have not been ridden this season (due to volcano eruptions that wiped out a town last year) and staying at haciendas with locals who were notified today via radio that we’d be dropping by.

Riding Horses through vineyards. What could be better?

Unfortunately this is a quick post as it's 2am in Peuto Monte, Chile and we have a 8am charter flight to Futaleufú Vally for a week of riding. more to come on the next post in about a week.

Anyway the last few days in Santa Cruz have been amazing. From jumping into a rental car and finding our way down to what I'd like to call the James bond on wineries (Casa Lapostolle's Clos Apalta), to riding through vineyards experiencing the beauty of the back country on amazing strong horses.

I wish I could write more, but you'll have to wait a week for the details. Oh got stopped by the policia two nights ago, but luckily they where cool:-)

Click here for all the latest photos...

Have we really only been here 36 hours???

That is what I asked Raj about 10 minutes ago as we sat by the pool enjoying recounting everything that we have already experienced...

So, our flight arrived in Santiago, Chile yesterday (March 10th) at 6:30 AM. We easily got through customs/immigration and hired a taxi to take us to our hotel. As you can imagine, the hotel wouldn't allow us to check in at 7:30 am, but they were very nice and were willing to hold onto our bags so we could explore for a bit. So, without the opportunity to change or freshen up from our 16 hour journey and red-eye flight, we set out to see what Santiago had to offer. Fortunately, our hotel was centrally located and we easily stumbled toward the most obvious of Santiago's tourist destinations, Parque Metropolitano. Since we arrived there before 9 am, and the Funicula (a tram that takes you up/down the steep hill) didn't open until 10 am, we ventured out on the one hour hike up the very steep hill (I was not wearing the appropriate shoes or attire for this, and poor Raj was still carrying his heavy backpack with our Netbook and everything else he had carried onto the plane). The beginning of the path was not clearly marked and we initially took a wrong turn. During this short walk going the wrong way, we were enthusiastically greeted by two stray dogs, who seemed insistent upon escorting wherever we went. One of them, stayed by our side when we realized we needed to back track. This sweet little girl (picture attached) guided us all the way to the top of the hill, and an hour later, plopped down beside us at the steps of the statue and took a little nap as we sat, rested and took in the view. We named her Mira (because she was so excited to be showing us “her hill” and seemed to constantly be saying “look!”). She stayed by our side until we took the Funicula down the hill (my feet were starting to blister in my inappropriate shoes and couldn't bear to walk back down). We wandered back toward our hotel around 11:30 am, and were very lucky and relieved to find that they had a room ready for us (3 hours early!). So, we took much needed showers and a very nice long nap until about 4pm. We woke up hungry but unwilling to eat a large meal because we wanted to explore the nightlife. So, we strolled down the street in the opposite direction as in the morning and quickly came across a little cafe. Our waitress did not speak any English, and my Spanish is very limited (generous), but she was incredibly patient and we eventually ended up with an interesting and yummy sandwich to share and two beers.

A few hours later we walked to the Buena Vista district (known to be more Bohemian and young and randomly chose a lovely restaurant for our first dinner. By now it was after 10 pm, as we had read that the nightlife doesn't begin until around 9:30. However, we found that the nightlife consisted of drinking on patios and the restaurant was actually empty except for 2 other tables. We had two waiters, but neither spoke any English. They were slightly less patient with our lack of Spanish than the waitress earlier, but mostly nice and our food and bottle of wine was not only delicious, but cheap! It was definitely worth suffering through awkward ordering!

First impressions of Santiago: an energetic city, very pedestrian friendly (sidewalks were wider than the street), friendly and helpful people, clean roads, but surprisingly bad air pollution, stray dogs everywhere, but seemingly well fed. Second impression: not enough going on to stay more than one night.

We had only reserved one night in the hotel in Santiago, but we have a flight out of Santiago to Puerto Montt on Friday, so we decided to take a couple of days to explore the Chilean wine country. Although there are a few wineries that can be visited as day trips, we wanted to get a bit farther away from the typical tourist locations. We got a solid suggestion to check out the Santa Cruz in the Colchagua Valley. So, this morning I called a B&B highly recommended on TripAdvisor and booked us 2 nights. Then the fun began because Santa Cruz is about 3 hours south of Santiago. Short notice transportation was a very expensive option, so the hotel assisted us in renting a car (they brought it right to our hotel). Now, for those of you who know the story about my parents driving through England, I have to say that for the first 20 minutes of our road adventure, I imagined titling this blog, “Bloody hell, give way!!!” But honestly, once we found our way to the main highway, the drive was incredibly pleasant and was a great opportunity to see more of the Chilean lifestyle and scenery as we drove through tiny towns and through valleys, corn fields and wine orchards. We arrived at our 6 bedroom B&B much earlier than we expected and were greeted by a helpful staff who immediately made us a reservation at a nearby winery called Lapostolle (voted Best Winery in the World by Wine Spectator Magazine last year). We really enjoyed the tour of the modern facilities and the detailed information about their production (like they are the only winery in Chile to hand separate the grape from the vine, and the owner lives in France and also owns Grand Marnier – she only visits here about 4 times a year). The wines we tried were good but not good enough for to buy any and lug around... or even to drink tonight really – we'd prefer to sample something new. As soon as we got back to the hotel, we rested by the pool in the sun and shared a sandwich as we realized we had missed lunch altogether...again. We also arranged for tomorrow's adventure, which will include a full day of wine tours (3 wineries) and wine tasting, but with a twist – we get to do almost all of it on horseback! Woohoo! Apparently, not too many visitors are brave enough for this so we don't have any feedback on what to expect – we'll get back with you on that. The guide was very pleased to learn we have horseback riding boots with us though. And we are happy to have another day to use them so that hopefully we won't resent the extra weight they add to our bags :(

Anyway, we are having so much fun already. We've had a perfect balance of exploring, relaxing and adventure. We feel like time is moving very slowly for now; it feels like we have been here several days. It is very hard to believe we have been here only one night! We will try to post another update on Friday because we leave for our week-long horseback trip in Patagonia on Saturday and won't be posting anything until we get back.
Salud!