Fortunately, I´m not as jaded as I was the last time I wrote. I´m doing much better now. And am ready to tell you about some of fun and not-so-life threatening adventures. After leaving Valparaíso last Monday, I found a bus headed to Mendoza, Argentina. Their motto? ¨Tierra de sol y vino¨...Land of sun and wine. I figured you´d like that one. I certainly did.
I found a pretty cool hostel called Break Point where I met some really neat people...Joe (the plumber) from Virginia, Victoria (from Sweden...and yes, she had blonde hair and blue eyes), and Youandi and Meryn (from Holland). Joe and I ended up taking a somewhat dangerous bike and wine tour. Everyone always says never to drink and drive but I´ve never heard anything about drinking and biking. It really should be added to the list. After the third stop I was feeling pretty good.
The first stop was a chocolateria, which was where I thought I was going to get some treats. And I did, it just happened to be chocolate liquor, which was about 19% alcohol. I thought I was going to be able to blow flames! It´s a good thing I didn´t try their 80 proof absinthe made from I don´t remember what. That would have laid me out on the floor right there. Needless to say, I was ready for the probably 10 mile bike ride to the winery at the end of the road after that. It was a beautiful day, there was a light breeze, the sun was shining, a few clouds in an all blue sky. I was enjoying life...until the trucks started whizzing by at light speed.
It said the in the book that it was a beautiful ride, except for one thing...the busy road, with no shoulder. Now, on my bike at home, which I haven´t ridden in probably three years, we´re friends but we´re not one. My bike has no problem throwing me at any moment. Okay, maybe it´s not my bike, maybe it´s me but still, the end result is the same, I end up on the ground. I didn´t have any crashes on my one-speeder fortunately. I could have used another gear going up those little hills however. It was amusing though and I did really love the ride when the traffic slowed a little and I could thoroughly enjoy the Cottonwood tree lined road.
As for the wine (with the exception of the chocolate stuff), it was incredible. We technically only drank at two bogedas (wineries) but between the two, had between five and six glasses of wine each. I´ve decided that if you pay for your tasting, you get a full glass, not just the traditional sip. I know they put those little spitton thingys there for a reason. My friend Cary used to call throwing out alcohol ¨alcohol abuse¨ so in order not to be an abuser of alcohol, I drank all of mine, except for the last glass which Joe helped me out on. I told him if he wanted to bike back with me, he´d have to help.
Besides having tons of vinyards in Mendoza for grapes such as Malbec (the most popular in the region), they also have Cabernet Sauvignon, Merlot, Bonarda, among others. They also produce a considerable amount of olive oil. (I´m a fan of the trees, which when in the sunlight have leaves that look like they´re made of silver.) Mendoza is located in the desert and is a great place to grow wine. Apparently, the Malbec grape came from France where it wasn´t growing very well and because of the sunny and dry conditions, it thrived here. I went to five bogedas in total ranging from 70,000 bottles a year to 30,000,000. That´s a lot of wine. I learned how they make it (I didn´t realize that they also age wine in bottles as well as in barrels), how to tell if it´s good or not when you swirl it in the glass, and of course, it didn´t take me too long to figure out how to drink it. Patagonia is another popular region for a different type of wine so you can only imagine how much fun I´m going to have this week. :o)
After my wine country tours, I took a bus back to Santiago, which got stuck at the border for over three hours, which meant I was late for meeting the Sarfatis. I could only imagine how freaked out they were when they got there and couldn´t find me and couldn´t call me because my cell phone was dead. While I was trying to find a phone to call them, I ended up running right into them...literally. Apparently, they had gotten hung up in the airport with filling out their paperwork. We got them settled into their hotel and after eating breakfast I headed to my hotel to get settled back in for a few days.
We originally had plans to meet up at 1:00 that afternoon and finally about 4:30 they wandered into the lobby of my hotel...horror story in hand. After countless wrong turns in a taxi, wandering the streets of Santiago on foot, and asking countless strangers and policemen for assistance, they finally found my hotel. Fortunately, we were at least able to giggle about it a little. We then took off to visit the largest church in Santiago, see the local market, and have dinner. The next day we planned to meet at 9:30 am outside the Palace to watch the changing of the guard.
The changing of the guard was...well, not happenin´. How is it that you can travel thousands of miles to see something and then it doesn´t happen? So, we took a picture in front of the palace and headed off for the famous outdoor market. I´ll have to admit, it was pretty impressive, full with fresh fruits and vegetables, all kinds of meats, including pigs´ hearts, anything that you would ever want to buy and some things you wouldn´t care to. I also found some herbs on the street that were for a variety of illnesses, one even said it cured impotence. Interesting.
There really isn´t a whole lot to do in Santiago besides museums so we opted for the pool. When I got there, Helen and Peter both told me they had gotten scolded for having food at the pool (pastries, strawberries, and apricots) so Helen had moved the food up to a shaded area above the pool. Dr. Sarfatis was having fun while swimming and Helen and I were playing the part of Greek Goddesses. It wasn´t long and Peter said, ¨Helen, throw me an apricot.¨ So, she dropped one down to him. After awhile she said, ¨What´d you do with the pit?¨ And he, in his funny Greek accent answered, ¨I hid it.¨ I couldn´t help but laugh as it sounded like something a 5 year old would do...if you´re not smiling, then you had to be there.
That night, we decided to meet for dinner. I couldn´t get a reservation for the restaurant my uncle´s friend had recommended so the hotel the Sarfatis were staying at suggested one. When he called for a reservation they said they didn´t think it was possible, then, okay, sure, table for 4 at 8:15. My friend, Anton, whom I met in Cusco, had come to Santiago for the day in route to Mendoza, so I invited him to join us for dinner. It´s amazing what you need a reservation for these days. Apparently in Santiago, you need a reservation for a buffet. You can´t imagine the looks of surprise on our faces when the waiter said there wasn´t a menu, only a buffet. We went ahead and ate there. There is a reason the guidebook says the food in Chile isn´t all that much. A Chilean told me the other day he though it was similar to American food...and he didn´t mean that as a compliment.
Anton had to catch a 10:30 bus to Mendoza so he left a little earlier than we did. So when I got to my room and saw his bag and jacket still sitting there I was a little surprised. I thought maybe the desk people wouldn´t let him up. So I went to check. No, he hadn´t been there. That´s strange. So I went back up to my room to wait. About 5 minutes later there was a knock on my door and a frantic Anton was standing in front of me. Just in case the bus was late (which is frequent here) we took off for the station, via the Metro. When we got there, nada. The Metro was closed and we already knew a taxi was out of the question since a football game had just finished...the streets were crazy. So much for trying that one. All I could offer as a consolation was good company and a bed for the night. So, we stayed up talking about great 80´s bands the rest of the night. I got an email from him yesterday and he had made it to Mendoza and was getting ready to leave for a wine tour.
Puerto Montt is another port town. Thankfully I haven´t had the same luck as in Valparaíso. I went hiking Volcano Osorno yesterday. Even though I was the only one on the tour, I still had a good time and I´ll have to say that my guide was really good at taking my picture. It was incredibly cloudy though so I wasn´t able to see the crater. It was a little rainy out but generally a good day. I got some amazing photos of the lake though when the sun started to come out from behind the clouds. Today, I´m heading for Punta Arena for probably the next day or two, then I´ll be off to Puerto Natales. I´m not sure if I´ll make it down to Tierra del Fuego or not. I might head north to El Calafate in Argentina. The book says that if you´ve seen Torres del Paine and The Perito Moreno Glacier then you´re not going to see anything except more of the same.
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