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Woke up at 6:30 to get ready for our trip to the coast, the Pacific Coast. Had a bit more leisurely breakfast as we were ready sooner than normal. I really have to teach the people of South America to make scrambled eggs. They put way to much liquid in them and zero seasoning of any kind. We did learn a good tip from a British couple, at the omelet station just have them cook you eggs any style. The man looked like he had the perfect over easy egg.
After breakfast, it was off to the car for our 90-minute drive to the coast. Traffic was a bit heavy getting out of Santiago, but once on the autopista you can drive 75 miles an hour. Not that everyone else isn’t driving more like 100. I was going pretty fast and it was like I was standing still. You have to be on guard at all times, they change lanes without notice or a signal, and they love to weave in and out of traffic. We made it there and back without any issues.
The countryside was pretty barren, one of the forests looked like it recently burnt to
the ground. The little villages were pretty sad, dogs roaming the street, everyone looked pretty poor. It makes you realize just how much excess there is in the United States. We have so much and they as a whole have very little. The smog is also almost as bad as LA, all the way to the coast it was smoggy.
We arrived in Valparaiso at 11:30, thirty minutes later than we had planned. We found the parking lot easily, and so much easier to park here than almost anywhere in Europe, the spaces actually fit a normal sized car. When you drive in you get a token, that serves not only as your key to get back in the garage, but also is how you pay. You go to a vending machine drop it in and then it tells you how much you owe. You insert your credit card or cash, and then the token drops back down. When you exit you put the token in a slot and the gate opens to let you out.
The driving experience while long (especially the trip back we had to ignore google entirely because it wanted to avoid traffic, even
if the route we were on was the most direct route) was pretty stress free.
Valparaiso is a large port town, and also apparently open to the Chilean Navy, as there were naval ships in the harbor and Navy men everywhere. In fact, one of them was kind enough to direct us to an ascensor (funicular) so we could get up the hill to where our lunch was. The city is nothing but hills with only a small portion flat and along the port. There is a tram, which we took for one stop from the parking garage to the main port to get up the hill.
We relied on google maps a lot since we had no map, and the map in Fodor’s was pretty worthless. The first ascensor was supposed to be El Peral, it however was not operational, which is where the guy in the navy stepped in, to give us directions to the next one that was open. It was only a short walk to La Concepcion, which actually was much closer to our restaurant. The original plan was to take an ascensor up then, have lunch and walk from site to site, using
other ascensor’s when needed. There are about 8 that I am aware of in the section of town we were in.
The neighborhood is now very trendy, but like the top of the hill in Pittsburg (they have funicular’s to the top as well) it was originally where the workers lived. Now it is all trendy lofts with pretty amazing views. It turned out that pretty much all we had to do was have lunch and take some pictures on our way back down the hill back to the car. We did manage to see the Escala Piano, stairs painted to look like a piano. There is much more to see, but we just didn’t have the time, but just to have lunch at the coast, is reason enough to go here.
Speaking of lunch, it is the best lunch we have had so far on this trip. The view alone was amazing, looking over the port and beyond to the Pacific Ocean. The food was delicious, seafood and more seafood. Even the bread was good, and freshly warmed, if not just out of the oven.
We stated with Nuestros Ostiones a la Casa, (the literal translation
is Oysters of the house). They were not oysters today, they were Sea Scallops baked in the shell with a touch of white wine and parmesan cheese. They were heaven.
Jerry had Reineta al mantequilla, Sea Bream in a butter sauce. It was much more than a butter sauce; I am pretty sure there was cream in there as well as wine. What made it have that extra was the mix of herbs, which we could not identify, but the dish was fantastic. It was served over broccoli, and other vegetables. I had Pastel de Jaiba, there version of a crab cake. It was anything a crab cake, it was a creamy bowl of a heart attack, with lots of crab, it wasn’t Dungenous crab, but it was so much better then east coast crab. It was really like the best crab dip you have ever had. It would have been the prefect lunch if we could have had some wine, but we had to drive back to Santiago (and we did have a wine tasting on the way back) so wine was not an option.
After lunch we walked down the hill back to the parking lot.
Jerry was going crazy taking pictures. The walk down, while better than walking up would have been, was a bit slow for me, I was being extra careful not to have any mishaps and the hills were a bit steep.
Unfortunately, we did not see everything we had planned, but it was still nice to get out of the city. We managed to get back on the highway as we were now off to our wine tasting and Bodegas RE. We arrived exactly at our scheduled time.
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We just got back from dinner, I have to say, we are both exhausted. Today marks the end of our second week, with one week left. I am sure you have been able to tell that we are definitely slowing down in how much we see and do each day. We aren’t in our 40’s or even 50’s anymore. With each trip we learn a bit more about how travel will be in the future. Of course, we only really have about 5 or 6 big trips left before retirement. Once we retire to France, travel will be very different, most likely exclusively by train and given
a retirement budget, first class and 4 start hotels will likely go by the wayside, unless we have points galore from the hotel’s we are rewards members. Even tonight for dinner, we again stayed in the hotel, and had pasta, something we would never have done in the past, we always eat the local food, but our metabolisms are not what they were, we will never be the eat at 5:30 crowd, but maybe we skip a meal in the future.
The wine tasting was quite nice. It started with a tour of the winery, most of their grapes are grown in a different valley about a 4-hour drive away. The white varietals are grown in Casablanca Valley, which is where the Bodega is located. Yes, a Bodega, which is not a freaking corner store in New York, but the proper name for a winery in Spain and South America. The tour lasted about 45 minutes. Philippe, whose English was perfect, was a very good guide. This particular Bodega also makes red wine vinegar, olive oil and some liquors. They are experimenting with Balsamic Vinger, they are about at the end of the first 12-year aging process. They are
trying to preserve the traditional wine making of Chile, a small part of the wine is done in very old clay pots, which cannot be replaced. They also use specially designed concrete vats, shaped like pots. They of course still finish in the oak barrels.
We tasted three wines and the red wine vinegar. The red wine vinegar was possibly the best we have ever tasted, and we had to buy a bottle, hopefully he makes it back home. The wine was a Chardanoir (chardonnay/Pinot Noir blend). This is actually the base of the vast majority of champagne made in France. It was smooth crisp, if I could buy this at home it would be my new Sancerre for sure. Next was a 100% Carignan (bold and a perfect food wine). The last was 90% cabernet sauvignon and 10% Carignan. They were all very good. We purchased the Chardanoir and Cab/Carignan blend. I am drinking the Chardanoir as I type.
The drive back to Santiago took 2 hours, traffic was hell. The last 2 miles actually took 30 minutes.
Dinner was a simple affair, a very nice sparkling wine for Chile to start, yes, it is basically
the first time we have had any on this trip. I had a very interesting mushroom soup, dark not cream based at all. It was good, a little heavy on the stronger mushrooms. Entrees were penne pasta in a white sauce with chicken and shrimp and puttanesca, I told you very different from any other trip.
The dish of the day was Jerry’s fish at lunch, it was just outstanding and memorable.
This is our last night in Chile. Tomorrow we fly back to Buenos Aires for the last week of vacation. I of course have to work for about 3 hours when we get back tomorrow afternoon.
Upon reflection of this trip so far, we believe we short changed Chile. We should have spent 1 week here not three nights. If we win the lottery, we can come back.
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