Wine and Waves

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After two weeks in paradise we arrived in the big city of Santiago exhausted and ready to kick back and relax for a few days. Luckily for us, the suburbs of Santiago are home to some of Chile’s finest wineries and vineyards….so what better way to relax than with a wine tour? With my new found love for red wine, and Zack’s new found love for wine in general, we were in for a delight. We randomly chose to visit Vina Cousino Masul and it turns out that this winery is quite famous in South America, party because it has remained owned and run by the same family as it was founded by for 7 generations, and because it makes very prestigious (and expensive) red wine. Its fine wine reputation means that it has been visited by the rich and famous from all over the world such as Prince Charles (who apparently had a cracking time drinking with the staff until all hours of the morning), and right now they are preparing for a potential visit from Mr Obama in the coming months. So for about $10 US we got to try their wines for ourselves and toured the cellars and old warehouses. During the tour we got chatting to a lovely English couple so decided to finish the afternoon with more wine and some dinner back in town. Bliss!

So after a few days chilling out and exploring the city we took an overnight bus out to a tiny little coastal town 12 hours north called Baha Inglese. A Chilean couple we met back in Brazil months ago had made us PROMISE we would visit this ‘local charm’ and said it was perfect if we wanted something a bit off the beaten track. When we arrived we were greeted by beautiful blue waters with stunning rock formations, accompanied by a tiny little town with not another backpacker in sight. We found a hotel and planned for two days and one night relaxing, enjoying the serenity and soaking up the sun. We had a TV in our room for the first time since we began travelling so we turned it on only to find out that Japan had been hit by a devastating earthquake. Using my broken Spanish, I could also read down the bottom of the screen a warning by the Chilean government that the coast of Chile was under treat of a tsunami caused from the quake. We asked our receptionist if we were in any danger and she laughed and made a joke about us needing to sleep in our swimwear, so we decided not to worry and then headed off to the nearby town to explore.

When we returned at about 9pm we found that everything (the whole 4 or 5 restaurants and shops) in the main town was closed. As we got to our hotel, the owner was frantically waiting for us and told us to pack our bags…we were being evacuated. WHAT???!!! In a slight state of shock, we did what we were told and jumped into the back of a truck and were taken to an evacuation shelter in the middle of nowhere. At this point, we knew the treat couldn’t be all that serious, as Hawaii, the west coast of America and Central America had all avoided any harm, but Chile was certainly not taking any risks. They evacuated every coastal town (and for a country that is shaped like Chile, that’s a hell of a lot of coast) and wouldn’t re-open the roads until about 3pm the next day, 13 hours after the “wave” was predicted to hit. Luckily for us, our hotel owner arranged a bed for us in a neighbouring inland town, otherwise we would have spent the night on the floor of the shelter. So the next day, when we were finally allowed to return to Baha Inglese, we found that the tide had come in about an extra metre overnight….shocking I know! But as they say, better to be safe than sorry I guess.

So after an eventful 24 hours, we finally managed to get some food (as I forgot to mention that because they shut the town down, this also meant we didn’t have access to any food or water the whole time) we boarded a bus for another 12 hour journey north and onto our next destination.

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