VALPARASIO, CHILE

Day 1

Our first day here we hired a private tour guide named Michael the German Pirate.  During our first stop where he was showing us the difference between the upper class and lower class society he was stopped by the Police through a check stop.  He did not have his driver's licence.  This cost us about 2 hours in time and I'm sure a big fine for him.  Needless to say a bit of a damper on our tour.  Once his girl friend dropped his licence off to him we were on our way.

Our first stop was a vacation stop for typical Chileans.  It was quite quiet because it is the end of their summer season.  The water was absolutely freezing yet there were still a few people brave enough to enter the water.  The currents were also very strong, but they had a life guard on duty.

We also stopped at a fishing village but did not go into to it because we were short on time.  He then took us to a friend of his who was 86 years old and had a private museum collection.  This old guy was amazing.  He was a jack of all trades, he designed rail engines, planes, archaeology's digs, geology finds, astronomy and navy boats.  He had a private collection of many different things in a separate building located on his property.  He had constructed model navel ships with running engines and propellers, a train engine, had an impressive gun collection from the 1900's, models of birds, a baby mummy, and numerous other things.  He was a very interesting old guy and you could have spent all afternoon discussing things with him.  He simply opened his home to us to view.

 Next stop was a typical Chilean lunch with the locals.  We had a beer and an empanada.  These empanada's were again very different from any others we have had.  They were huge a meal by themselves.  The ladies were cooking up a storm in a very regular kitchen and it was very busy with local people out for Sunday lunch.

The Empanadas were keeping warm.  They were filled with ground beef, a special sauce, boiled egg and olives.  This is a typical filling however each sauce and each pastry is very different.

We then hit two different wineries after lunch.  One very big corporate type which is well known in the area and one smaller one.  The corporate one called casas del Bosque charged us $30 to taste 5 wines each.  No large pours here.  And in my opinion none of the wine was worth the money they were charging.  Beautiful setting but not very impressive.  The second winery was smaller, but none of their production was done in the facility.  We learnt a little bit more about making sparkling wine but again nothing too impressive.  So far we have had the best wine at dinner called Carmenra from Concha y Toro. 

On the way home Michael showed us the neighbourhoods from the top of the hill to the harbour.  When the city was originally founded all of the development was down by the water.  As it expanded the rich stayed down low and the poor moved higher up the mountain.  As it stands today the very poorest of people have the best views of the harbour.  In fact the new prison is built at the very top and has the most spectacular view of all.  Even though their windows are small and have bars on them.  Go figure, very different from home where the better the view the bigger the price tag.

It was a very long day, but we saw things and areas off the beaten track, but the wines in Mendoza still rock my boat.

Cheers