Colourful cerros

Valparaiso was to be our home for Christmas. It is a coastal city made up of 42 cerros (hills) - a good test for the calf muscles (fortunately there are a number of funiculars - the oldest dating back to the 1880s) and the car's brakes! It is a port city that was very wealthy and international in the nineteenth century until the Panama Canal was opened when much of the shipping traffic was diverted. The city had a revival in tourism in the early 2000s and part of the city received UNESCO World Heritage status so that the historic centre is now protected. In an attempt to decentralise Chile from its focus on Santiago, Valparaiso is also home to the National Congress. 

We had treated ourselves to a apartment in a small hotel two thirds of the way up one of the two main tourist hills. A highlight was the roof terrace which was an excellent place to, drink in hand, admire the city at any time of day. 

The view from the roof terrace

Chileans celebrate Christmas by going to midnight mass and then heading home for present opening and a large meal with family. The 25th is spent recovering! So when we arrived early evening on the 24th December we dashed to the supermarket to purchase our Christmas dinner for the following day and then headed out to one of the few restaurants that was open for a traditional Chilean menu. 

We started Christmas day with a leisurely morning and then headed off on a tours for tips street tour (in an almost deserted city) to discover more of the history and included the port, the main square, some of the terraces and funiculars. 

The port

 Oldest funicular

Main square & head of the navy

In Chile the fire service is run by volunteers and in Valparaiso we discovered there are 14 small fire stations (due to the many hills, poor electrical wiring and sea breezes), all of which were founded by different communities. We saw the German, English and Italian fire stations.

The highlight of the city is the street art, it is not clear how it started, but now every corner your turn leads to a new street art discovery. 

A small selection of the street art

After walking up and down the hills it was time to prepare our Christmas day feast of...pizza, salad and pisco cocktails. Followed by Christmas day entertainment playing yahtzee - Jess was the victor of both games, but this winning streak would not last long!

Nick getting into the festive spirit (when I made the purchase it didn't occur to me that I would have to walk with Nick whilst he was wearing this t-shirt)

On the Monday we woke up to wet streets and a grey sky, the first rain of our trip! The grey sky only lasted a couple of hours.

To improve our culinary skills we spent the day at a Chilean cookery school. The day started with a trip to the market to buy ingredients with our teacher and 4 other students. We've had lots of delicious fruit since arriving in Chile. We were told that the fruit that ends up in the local markets, whilst tasty, is mainly the imperfect produce that can't be exported. The corn and broccoli in the market were enormous!

The market

The menu

Once back at the cookery school Nick was set to work stripping the corn to make the blended corn layer for the Pastel de Choclo (underneath there was minced beef, a lump of chicken, half a boiled egg, a raisin and an olive). I cut up the Chirimoya (custard apple) an ugly looking fruit with a texture similar to Chinese dumplings, but is really sweet - and I just covered in freshly squeezed orange juice.

We also each made our own empanadas using pastry made from wine, flour and eggs and Nick gallantly volunteered to make the pisco sour. The other dishes pebre (a finely cut salsa eaten with everything!) and palta rellena (avocado filled with palm hearts) were made by our fellow students. After four hours of preparation we enjoyed a leisurely lunch accompanied by a glass or two of Chilean wine.

Preparation

The finished products

After all that hard work it was time for a nap!

- Jess

A little bit country

After two weeks of cities, it was time to pack up the car and head north into the country. We picked up our rental car from the Santiago airport and 1 free upgrade later, we were off in our Mazda 6 with automatic transmission towards Vicuña, in the heart of the Elqui Valley. The drive was almost entirely on Routa 5 which is the main highway in Chile that runs almost the entire length of the country. 

Roberto and Alejandra's building at ElquiTerra

Arriving into Vicuña was a bit different than our previous locations. Gone were the bus stops and the crowds. This was country living. Jess found us an absolutely amazing place to stay in ElquiTerra. The place was absolutely fantastic. It was located up the side of the hill in the valley, just outside of the city.  It was a small B&B with only 3 buildings. One common building and 2 units with 2 bedrooms that shared a bath. The hosts, Roberto and Alejandra, were absolutely fantastic. The place was just very relaxing. There were two hammocks just outside of our bedroom which became our reading nook for many hours while were there.

The view of the valley from our B&B

Hammock reading at all times of day and night

As a small place, you quickly got a sense of the community. Roberto and Alejandra provided the most amazing breakfasts every morning. The eggs came from the neighbor, the jam from the lady up the street. The fruit was local. Everyone helped each other out. We really enjoyed our time here and found ourselves wanting to hang around the property more than exploring the valley.

The dogs watch the chickens next door

When we did manage to leave, we had a good time. The night we arrived we went into town to get some dinner and tickets for the observatory tour for the following night. The Elqui valley is known for it's clear skies and boasts about half a dozen observatories.  Dinner was at Bar Bilbania. It was definitely a local place with good beer and hearty food. We finally go to try the Chorillana, which is pretty much the Chilean version of poutine without the gravy. It was a hearty dish and we managed to almost finish it despite it's size.

Chorillana. French fries topped with steak, grilled onions and a fried egg

The next morning, in an attempt to work off the Chorillana, we rented bicycles from our place and set off to cycle to a local brewery, whose product we had sampled the night before.

Before the hills

We love to hike, but cycling is definitely not my thing. We took the road less traveled to get to the brewery and we paid for it. It was an undulating gravel road with heavy pockets of sand to kill any momentum you might be able to work up. There was also no mention of hills when Roberto was describing the route to us. 

The Guayacan Brewery was a lot of fun. It was small and the guided tour took about 5 minutes. They had to get one of the tour guides from another group that was there to translate for us. Short story is, a homebrewer's beer became popular enough for him to open a microbrewery to meet the town's demand.  We got a sample of their lager, pale ale and ipa before settling in to the beer garden to rest before biking back.

The Guyacan biergarten

We took the road more traveled on the way back which was a much easier cycle. There was only one big hill I was never going to make it up. We relaxed back at the ElquiTerra before heading back into town to head out to the observatory.

The star gazing was the main reason for coming to the valley in the first place. I'll never forget the sky we saw in New Zealand on New Year's Eve last year. When I read about the observatories during trip research, it was an easy choice of something to do. We chose to head to Observatorio del Pangue. It was a 30 minute shuttle ride from downtown on a dirt mountain road up and over the valley ridge to get to the next valley where there was no night pollution.

Sunset from the observatory

Even though our guide, Eric, was disappointed in the sky we got to see an amazing display.  They had these awesome laser pointers to identify the different constellations, planets and galaxies that we were getting a chance to see through the telescope. We got to see many different things including Venus, Mars, Uranus, a couple different Nebula, and even got to watch the international space station fly across the night sky!

Our telescope

Overall it was an awesome night and a late one. Here's an idea of what we saw. I was able to capture the stars from our B&B the next night. It includes Orion's belt.

My first crack at star photography

After the late night at the observatory and a filling morning breakfast, we were out on the trail again, this time in search of more drink in the form of pisco.  Our first stop was Capel, the largest pisco maker in the area where most everyone seemed to work. We ended up with a private tour of an empty facility because it was the Friday before Christmas! Our guide was very good in explaining pisco to us. Neither of us had a clue what it was despite having already had pisco sours earlier in the trip. It grew out of the valley's need for something stronger than just wine. So they took very young white wine (mainly from the muscat grape) and distilled it. The resulting alcohol was then aged in barrels from 8 months to 3 years. 

The distillation at Capel

There's two kinds of pisco. The 8 month variety is made more for mixed drinks like the pisco sour whereas the 3 year is more of a sipping drink like a whiskey. They are typically aged in french oak or american oak barrels. After we had tried all our samples and picked some up for Christmas, we were on our way to the next stop, pisquera Aba. 

Aba pisquera

Aba is a smaller outfit than Capel. They used the same grapes as Capel but could be more creative as a smaller place. This tour tested both our Spanish and our tour guide's English. The highlight of this tour was getting to sample some of the pisco straight from the barrel. It was extra potent and probably highly flammable at that point. Definitely put hairs on your chest! We picked up some more pisco from there as well and headed back to the B&B where we fixed ourselves a nice dinner and enjoyed that we had the place to ourselves for the evening.

Overall, we had a great time in the Elqui valley. It was very peaceful and relaxing place and a very nice change of pace from the hustle and bustle of Santiago. 

-Nick

Santiago part 2

We had a leisurely morning involving some trip chores: washing & buying a sim card (so that we had data for navigational purposes ahead of collecting our rental car the next day).

We then set off to explore Castillo Hidalgo a fort on a hill just behind our accommodation which started life as part of the city's defenses in 1816, but later was turned into a museum and is now an event centre. A highlight is the cannon that is fired at 12pm every day, whilst we had been warned about this daily event it was still a huge shock for Nick, who demonstrated lightning reactions, when the canon was fired just in front of us! It was more of a shock for the tourist walking behind us who wasn't expecting it at all.

 The fort & views of the city

This was followed by a new adventure - riding the metro! Having read a detailed blog from another traveler buying tickets and navigating the metro was easy and we arrived at Parque Quinta Normal which hosts a number of the city's museums. On the recommendation of our guide from the previous day we visited the Memory Museum  (Museo de la Memoria). The museum has been carefully curated to walk you through the Pinochet regime in Chile from the coup in 1973, to how it impacted the every day lives of Chileans until the transition to democracy in 1990 and the work undertaken in subsequent years to record those who disappeared. There is a haunting display of mainly black and white photos on a wall three stories high showing more than 3,000 people who were killed or disappeared. This is a recent period of Chilean history that is still raw to many people. At times the exhibitions were gut wrenching, but it also showed the strength and impact individuals can have on the history of their country. A walk round the park helped us to reflect on the contents of the museum and lessons we can learn. 

The Memory Museum

A few of you have commented that food and drink make frequent appearances in our blog entries! These are topics important to both of us, but it is also a great way to get to know a country. Today's references are to my first pisco sour (refreshing and tasty) and then Buffalo Waffles, a tiny shop that offered waffles wrapped around fillings and eaten like a wrap. There was a queue outside this shop every time we walked by and finally it was our turn to join the queue!  We took our waffles stuffed with cheese, lettuce, tomato, turkey, BBQ sauce and potato chips to our local park where we were entertained by singers performing carols in a combination of English and Spanish. I will forewarn you that there will be plenty more food and drink references to follow! 

Our waffles packed with flavour & colour

- Jess 

If it ain't sweet, it ain't Chilean

We left Argentina in the rear-view mirror and were off to Chile. The day started off on a great note with us successfully ordering a cab over the phone in Spanish. Even though I was terrified of the Count as a small child, I can probably thank Sesame Street for being able to count to 10 in Spanish so addresses are in my wheelhouse. Our bus journey to Santiago would take us over the Andes along most of the same route we took to get to Aconcagua the previous day. 

The bus was only scheduled to take 6 hours but big unknown was the border crossing. We had warnings of how bad it could be, but in the end it wasn't much different than going through customs on an airplane with baggage. When we got to the crossing,  we all got off the bus like back when we were in school then walked single file into this warehouse type building for passport control. When we were done, we all got back on the bus, then the bus pulled into the warehouse. We took our "carry on" bags and stood in this room as our "checked" luggage was unloaded form the bus and put through an x-ray and then reloaded onto the bus. We then had to go place our "carry on" bags through the same x-ray. Of course mine got stopped. I was worried it was for all the electronics I had in there with various power cords and adapters an the like. Nope, it was for the plastic bag containing a half eaten bags of chips (crisps) and a bag of peanuts (peanuts) we had been saving to snack on. All in all, it was pretty smooth and we were out in under 2 hours!

However, we didn't realize that the border crossing time was not factored into our estimated arrival so we ended up about 2 hours late to our airbnb and our host had already left. A big thank you to our taxi driver for hanging around to make sure we had it figured out with our host and the reception of the building where his apartment was. 

After getting our stuff settled, we decided to head out for some dinner. Our apartment complex had 2 entrances. One on the very busy streety and one side entrance that opened up into a beautiful neighborhood. Restaurants and shops dotted the street with vendors selling their arts and crafts in makeshift stalls. Very reminiscent of San Telmo but not as old. 

Barrio Lastarria at our doorstep.

After a short walk around, we settled on dinner at a Peruvian restaurant, Tambo. I had my first Pisco sour (way more on pisco later) and the dinner was very good and filled us up for a day of exploring tomorrow.

This is exactly what it looks like and they did it again to a different cop right after they finished up here.

We got a great start on our first full day in Santiago. We had seen great reviews of this free walking tour that started a couple blocks away from us in the main square of Plaza de Armas, so we gave it a go and we are very glad we did. I guess everyone else read Trip Advisor too because we ended up with around 30 people in our group being led around by our guide Franco. He was a great guide full of mostly correct facts (we fact-checked) delivered in an entertaining way. His storytelling made the difference as he was able to inject some personality into the sights we were seeing.

Plaza de Armas

We learned of Santiago's founding by the Spanish, their wars with the Mapuche, the independence from Spain, the dictatorship of Pinochet. It was a very good way to learn about the history of both Santiago and Chile

La Moneda, the presidential palace

Not everything we saw was of historical importance. Some things were cultural. As Franco put it to us, Chileans like sweet things so if a drink isn't sweet, it's probably not Chilean. This explains why coffee was not always a popular drink in Chile. To fix that problem, they decided to adapt a Hooter's-like approach: Let's take something people don't care much for and have it be served by beautiful women. And just like that, cafe con piernas, translated to coffee with legs, was born. Cafes were coffee is served by women with tight dresses and high heels mixed with a little bit of conversation. And yes, some eventually evolved into cafes with blacked-out windows and bikini-clad baristas. 

We also saw the opera house (not as nice as Teatro Colon), but the highlight was the restaurant across the street. Legend has it that when then-President Bill Clinton was in Santiago for a performance, he was a bit thristy and stopped in this restaurant and had a coca-cola to quench his thirst. Well the owner was so excited, he renamed the restaurant after him and "La pica de Clinton" was born! The owner still has the can and glass used on display!

La Pica de Clinton

All in all, the tour was great and we both saw and learned a lot. The tour went for 4 hours and ended at the base of San Cristobel, which was a large hill in the middle of the city with a shrine to the immaculate conception on the top. Since it was hot (the forecast has been yellow circles the entire trip), we decided to put the "fun" in funicular and take that up to the top to see the views, which did not disappoint.

A view of Santiago from atop San Cristobel

After a busy day of seeing a lot of sights, we retired to our apartment to prepare for the next day

-nick

Ain't No Mountain High Enough...

After our two day binge of wine and grilled meat, we thought it might be advantageous to get out and stretch our legs on a little hike, if only to prepare ourselves for what lies ahead. We set our sights on Aconcagua. Aconcagua has the unique distinction of being the tallest peak in both the western and southern hemisphere. We found an adventure tour group that offered us a 6 hour return hike from the trail head to the first base camp for those attempting a summit, Confluencia.

Aconcagua

The tour company told us to be ready to go at 7:30AM. We woke with plenty of time and were outside with 5 minutes to spare. We were waiting for the van...and waiting...and waiting. Finally around 8:05AM or so (not that we were keeping track) our van arrives and our party of 4 + our guide were off to the park, which was a three hour drive away. Spirits were high as our guide described what we were going to see on today's hike. However about an hour into our drive, we hit gridlock on the only road that was going to get us there. After our driver asked around, we found out there was a car accident up ahead and that it was going to take ~2 hours for the traffic to clear. This was already an all day event so our guide presented us with three options: Wait it out, get to Aconcagua and hike as far as we could knowing we wouldn't make it to Confluencia, turn around and reschedule for the next day, or just hike around there. Three of us were ready to reschedule but the remaining vote had rafting scheduled for the following day. After getting that in order, we rescheduled for Saturday and headed back to Mendoza. 

With our spirits slightly deflated and the effects of waking up early to an alarm setting in, we took the remainder of Friday to work on the rest of our South America trip. We carb loaded for dinner with some pasta and got an early night as we had to be ready at 7:30AM again!

The bus was on time today and everyone was ready to give it another go. Traffic was clear the entire way and we made it to the park on time. It took about 90 minutes to check in to get into the park as their process (like most encountered in Argentina) was very manual. But in the end we got our trekking permits and set off on our way.

Ready to go! (I'm not that big, the wind was in my shirt)

The weather had cooperated for the most part. It was a sunny day and not too hot. The wind was a little less cooperative. The valley we trekked up was rather dry so the wind would kick up quite a bit of dust. We didn't let that deter us and we pressed on.

Trying to avoid tasting dust

We were totally closer than before

Our guide kept a manageable pace, if not sometimes slow. I thought we could have moved faster, but in the end, she was probably just being a little cautious of the altitude. We started at ~9000ft and we gained over 2000ft of elevation during the trek. We took frequent water breaks and had a nice stop for lunch.

Our only water crossing of the day

It wasn't an overly technical hike. While we gained the elevation for most part it was steady and we didn't have much to carry except water. After about 3 hours, we finally reached Confluencia!

Made it!

When we reached the camp, we had a beautiful 360 degree view of Aconcagua, the surrounding peaks and even a gorgeous view looking back towards where we came from

It took us about 2 hours to descend and everyone was exhausted and fell asleep quickly as soon as we started our 3 hour journey back to Mendoza. We got in very late, exhausted from a tiring, but spectacular day in the mountains. We quickly ate dinner, packed our bags and were off to bed as we had another early morning the next day to catch our bus to Santiago!

-Nick

Malbec!

Mendoza has two main attractions - wine and mountains, an excellent combination in my view! I was surprised to discover just how old the wine industry is in Mendoza. Wine has been produced in the area for hundreds of years. However, it has only been during the last 15 - 18 years that the fine wines and export market has developed. We were told this was due to the decrease in domestic demand as a result of diversification in the drinks industry and an increase in foreign investment to create quality wine.

On the Wednesday we headed off on a tour to visit four different wineries and found ourselves tasting our first wines at 10am, it was going to be a long day!

The first bodega (the direct translation is cellar), Vistalba started with a tour and then, getting down to the real business, a tasting which included a sparkling, a malbec rose, a malbec blend and a delicious full bodied malbec the 2013 Tomero Gran Reserva. There was the unusual addition of a delicious fresh cut grass smelling shot of olive oil that was produced from olive trees dotted amongst the vines.

Mountains & wine

The Vistalba sampler

Our next stop was Dominio del Plata, a winery started by Argentina's first female winemaker. It had the additional excitement that the lawn was being circled by a number of hawks who were on the look out for small guinea pigs for their lunch. We were told not to be concerned if they swooped down and pecked our heads! Here we had the challenge of trying a white, a malbec blend, a malbec and a late harvest malbec, with cream cheese, rocket, dulche de leche and salted crisps to determine the best food pairings. 

Wine and food pairings at Domino del Plata

The third, and most importantly the lunch stop, was Casarena, an old winery that the current owners took over just 10 years ago. 

The mountain view through the vineyards

Malbec grapes on the vine

I think it is fair to say that the delicious food was a bit of a distraction from the wines!

Just a sample of the lunch plates

The final stop of the day was Matervini, the latest project of an experienced and successful Mendoza winemaker who started life as an accountant (to all accountants reading this, there is hope for you yet!) and now wants to answer the question "what's next after Malbec" by focusing on each stage of the growing process to make even better wines. The founder, Santiago Achaval, happened to be on site that day and came and talked to us passionately about the importance of the personal connection with wine and his story, before returning to his spreadsheets.

Super modern winery

The Matervini tasting

By this point, having swallowed more than we spat, we had reached the limits of our wine consumption for the day! However, the next morning feeling refreshed we visited our final winery for a private tour of Bodega CARO a joint project between two great wine making families - the Rothschilds and the Catenas. This project is focused on making elegant wines the drinker wants to drink again and again. I always find it a relief when having tasted a wine the words you use to describe it are those that the winemaker was expecting you to say! I'm pleased to say that in the presence of the technical director my mutterings of "smooth" flavours were greeted with approval. I would be happy to drink these wines on a regular basis!

Beautiful cellars dating back to 1895 which has survived a number of earthquakes and tremors  

Overall the stand out wines for me were the Tomero Gran Reserva, the late harvest malbec and the CARO, unfortunately, most of these seemed to be at the upper end of the price range!

To recover from all the wines we spent the afternoon exploring the huge park in Mendoza which includes a boating lake, formal gardens, outdoor & indoor swimming pools, cycling and skating circuits and lots of green space shaded by old trees. 

We had one final culinary experience we wanted to try, asado (Argentinian BBQ). So, feeling refreshed, we headed off to La Barra (which had been recommended by a Mendozan native) for an early 9pm dinner. The kitchen consisted of an open fire place in the restaurant's back garden surrounded by a make shift looking work area. We sat on a table nearby watching the chef sweat over the fire place cooking delicious ribs and steak seasoned with nothing more than a hefty hand of salt. The meat, accompanied by a glass of malbec, was delicious!

We ambled back to our Airbnb which was located on a street full of bars and restaurants that came to life at night. Just to prove he hasn't been fully converted to a wine drinker Nick managed to fit in a quick flight at the brew pub next to our apartment.

After all this eating and drinking our next post will show we have since been a bit more active! 

Jess