Towers of Pain & Cones of Pleasure

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We are now in Mendoza, the region of Argentina which produces 70% of the country´s wine. So far, all we have done here is go to our hostel, decide it was rubbish and spend this morning finding another one!!

From Punta Arenas, we made our way up to Puerto Natales, gateway to the Torres del Paine national park. It was very spooky in PN, as the whole valley was under a strange blanket of cloud. When we were driving up to it, I thought it was water, but then we just drove straight under it - a very strange sensation. The town was completely dead (not for the first time for a Patagonian town in winter) and not much was open. We eventually found ourselves a hostel and organised ourselves for the following day. Having initially written off the possibility of hiking in the park, we were slightly thrown when it turned out that one of the refugios was open and that we could stay there and do some day hikes. After some agonising, we decided that our lack of coats (and my lack of gloves, hat, or in fact anything remotely warm) would land us in serious strife if it started snowing heavily, so we went for a day tour.

This was a long day in a minibus, but we did get to see some amazing scenery. The park is absolutely stunning. Vast in scale, majestic mountains, glaciers and beautiful lakes all compete for your attention. We were able to do a couple of little walks in the park, one to some cascades and another longer walk around Lago Grey. This was incredibly beautiful, and finally satisfied our desire to see lumps of ice. I think we imagined Patagonia would be an icy wilderness, and that is not really the case. At Lago Grey, we saw what we had been hoping for in Patagonia - huge lumps of light blue, glacial ice floating like sculptures in the lake. A truly memorable and amazing sight. The following day we headed back to Punta Arenas, having changed our flights, and on up to Santiago.

In Santiago, we stayed at the Happy House Hostel, the most incredible hostel I have ever seen. It was beautifully renovated, clean and had lovely original wooden floorboards. We checked out the Museo des Artes Pre-Columbian, a fascinating collection of stuff from throughout South America. We also had a heavenly ice cream. In Santigo, everyone walks round with little tubs of ice cream with an upsidedown cone sticking out. We had to try this, as, judging by the number of people we´ve seen eating it, it is an integral part of daily life in Chile. Anyway, it would be wrong not to fully immerse ourselves in the local culture, so we decided it was only right to sample the traditional cuisine. For some reason, I found it very strange to see smartly dressed businessmen licking their multicoloured ice creams!!

Having spent a couple of days in Santiago, we got on a bus up to Valparaiso, a colourful, hilly town on the coast. Arriving at the bus station we decided to get a local bus to our hostel and we managed to get on one going the right way. We couldn´t work out how to pay, but the driver seemed in no rush to collect our money. When we spotted a landmark where we wanted to get off I turned round searching for the bell to stop the bus. In my hast, I pulled something very big and red, which turned out to be some kind of emergency window smasher. Sass said ´noooooooooooo not that one´. Fortunately I had pulled it in quite a girly fashion, so no damage was done. When we got off the bus, we tried to pay but the driver, looking somewhat exasperated, waved us off. Hurrah - a free bus ride - result!!!!! Sometimes being a wally foreigner does pay...

There are lots of winding streets with a mish mash of brightly-painted houses, and it is a fun place to wander around. We did a little walk looping up the hill from the centre up to Pablo Neruda´s house. I must confess that neither of us really knew who he was, aside from vague notions that he was some kind of artist. It turns out he was quite a fascinating character, a rare artist in that he also became a prominent politician. The house itself was beautiful, with some interesting bits ad bobs in it (some rather beautiful, others bizarre and tasteless) and wonderful views down across Valpo to the ocean. Having been cultural, we wandered to the fresh produce market, which has cheap but wonderful fish restaurants upstairs. As we were both mystified and left floundering by the Menu (everything seemed to be conger eel...) Sass pointed at the food on the next table and we ended up with a fabulous piece of fish with some delicious potatoes - possibly our first really good meal in Chile!

From Valparaiso, we got a bus to Mendoza, Argentina. The distance is not that great as the llama walks, but, for a mere mortal coach, it is somewhat slow. This may have something to do with the road passing straight through the Andes. It was easy to see why the route is often closed following heavy snow fall, as the twisty, steep road would easily become a jumbo ski slope. The journey was beautiful - bright sunlight shining off the majestic peaks. On arrival in Mendoza, we headed to Breakpoint hostel. This was dirty and overpriced, so the next day we did a ´hostel tasting´, and moved to Lifehouse - cheaper and far more cheerful. We spent our first day just wandering around Mendoza, walking through some of the lovely, picturesque Plazas.

Yesterday, we booked a 2.30 tour at Chandon Winery in Lujan. Part of the Moet and Chandon stable, they specialise in Sparkling Wine mainly for the Argentinian market. We had been told about Chandon by a couple we met in Puerto Natales, who had a lot of fun doing a bubbly tasting there. Walking to the bus station took much longer than we thought and then we struggled to find the right bus. When the right one did arrive, everyone (including the driver) got off. Just as I was getting on, the door closed, nearly chopping me in half and the driver signalled that he was going to get some food. By this time, I was stuck on the bus on my own with the engine running. This caused quite a lot of amusement all round, particularly to an Argentinian family waiting to get on the bus. I resisted the temptation to press a few buttons to try and open the door, and sat there being well behaved until the driver got back. My little mishap seemed to have entertained him anyway! We sat on the bus for about 1 1/4 hours, wondering if we were ever going to get to Chandon. At least there was the promise of a drink at the other end...

Finally, at 3.15 we arrived. We were told that we had missed our English tour, but that we could go to the shop and do a tasting. We were also offered a Spanish tour at 4, which we decided to do so we could see round the winery. Having tried a rather delicious glass of ´Fresco´ bubbly, we embarked on a bigger tasting, which cost us 40 Pesos (under 8 pounds) for the two of us. This gave us the chance to try three different sparkling wines and the rest of the bottles was ours for the drinking! We were in luck as, having not booked a tasting, they didn't have all three wines chilled, so we got an upgrade for one of the bottles and got a more expensive one instead. We polished that one off fairly smartish, as we only had about 25 minutes to taste before our tour. Our luck continued when the two girls booked for te 4pm tour turned out to be an American and her English-speaking Argentinian friend, so it turned into an English tour! These girls were great fun and we ended up having dinner with them to celebrate one of their birthdays!!! As everyone goes out so late here, we weren't meeting them until 9, so we had to stay awake and energetic which we didn't quite manage to do...

The next day we weren't in much of a wine mood (I can't think why...) but we decided we should see a more authentic winery, so headed to Bodegas La Rural in Maipu. we had a quick tour, but the wine was nothing special really. They did, however, have quite an interesting museum showing wine-making through the ages. Argentina were playing Holland today in the football, and Mendoza went insane. If I hadn't known it was a meaningless group game, I would have assumed it was the final from the way everyone was dressed up / face painted / chanting in the streets / waving flags. They are seriously serious about their football here...

Tomorrow we are heading on a night bus to Buenos Aires, after a morning of horse trekking in the Andes. I have never been on a horse before, so that could be interesting!!! I hope my horse is friendly and of a happy disposition...

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