Robbery, Dog Attack and Wine, Oh My!

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We decided to spend our second to last night in Santiago in the Bellavista neighboorhood at a Bar Crawl. Our group was made up of a dozen Brazlians, 2 guys from Mendoza, a few Germans and a very very drunk Australian girl. We bounced around from bar to bar until it was time to go home. We ended our evening by having a Santiago "Completo" which is a giant hot dog loaded up with a ton of toppings. I stepped off the side walk to take a picture of our feast when I guy in a sweatshirt ran up behind me, hit my arm and stole my phone right out of my hands. Abby and I ran after him, but a handful of hot dogs slowed us down. This was a bit of a morale hit, as my phone was our last electronic capable of taking pictures.

We woke up the next morning still feeling a bit down, but we had reservations for a wine tour in a vineyard in the southern part of Santiago, so we head off in an attempt to pick up our mood. We arrive to the vineyard where we met up with the rest of our group: 2 Americans who are teaching English in Santiago, 3 Italians, 2 Brazilians and a Columbian woman. The tour includes a bike ride through the Vina Cousino Macul. The view was incrediable, as it sat between the snow topped Andes and the Skyline of Santiago.

Here we learned about a red wine known as Carmenere, that is only grown in Chile. This is due to a parasite that exists in every country except three: Chile, New Zealand and Australia. Abby and I had been accidentally ordering this the whole time we've been in Chile, so we were sure to pick up another bottle to take home with us.

About half way through the bike ride, a pack of dogs ran up and bit the Italian girl on the leg. We stopped to chase away the dogs and to examine her leg. Although it didn't look that bad, the risk of infection was too high so one of the guides took the Italians to a local clinic. After talking to the guy walking around with the dogs, he explained that they had a problem with local people jumping the fense and stealing from the vineyard so they have the dogs trained to protect it. Apparently the vineyard forgot to tell him we were coming so the dogs were still out on the prawl. We carried on, all a bit shaken.

We continued through the vineyard and the wine cellars, stopping along the way to try various types of wine. The vineyard was gorgeous and the wine even better. After another couple hours we headed back to the apartment. Starving and exhausted we decided to grab some cheese and crackers from the grocery store right next to our apartment and lay in bed watching TV for the rest of the afternoon. This was exactly what we needed and after a couple hour nap we woke up and decided to walk around downtown for dinner.

We found a cute bar/restaurant where we were able to finally try the Chilean drink Michelada. This is a light beer mixed with hot sauce, lemon juice, merken (a local spice) and a salted rim. Delicious! We ate and headed back to the apartment for an early night. Tomorrow we are going to get up and head to our final city, Valparaiso, a small beach town that is suppose to be amazing.



*More pictures to come, the Americans too photos of us at the vineyard which they have agreed to email us soon. I'll add these once they come in.

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