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Published: March 9th 2016
R : The evening before my birthday, we headed down to a Pisco bar I had found in Barrio Lasteria. It was pretty heaving, so we grabbed a seat at the bar. I had already decided it was going to be a Pisco flight - a tasting of three Piscos - and Cate had grabbed a Pisco cocktail with Earl Grey tea in it. The Piscos I had were all ok, but one stood out being more drinkable than the others. My favourite was Espiritu de Elqui 40. After joining Cate in another cocktail we stumbled back to our apartment - it's a long time since we've been out for 'drinks'.
We woke up on my birthday to another blisteringly hot Chile day. After a bit of a bizarre "e-birthday" starting with the opening of e-cards and presents from the family, we attempted to make bacon butties with Chilean bacon - why can you never get bacon like the UK abroad? - as a bit of a treat, then headed for Cerro San Cristobel. It's a steep hill which overlooks the city and has a funicular up. The walk there takes you through Barrio Bellavista (Barrio means district, by the
Ready for Harvest
(Due any day now)way) which is full of shops and restaurants and street art. We made a note to come back here afterwards.
The space at the top of the hill is a large park with great views over the city - except for the smog of course. Santiago is quite a smoggy city as it is surrounded by mountains and it just sits here in a bowl over the city. Sometimes it completely obscures the mountains from view in the city. And like every South American city there is a Christ the redeemer statue up there overlooking the city - this one had a ladder up his back, which I am presuming didn't reflect the reality of the man himself. They were also playing a light chanting through speakers which made for a peaceful but slightly surreal experience. We walked about the gardens which looked like something out of Indiana Jones - all crumbled steps and walkway, with black and white tiled paths - mainly missing half the tiles, then grabbed a drink before the descent into Bellavista. This, apparently, is where all the foreign tourists in Chile are!
After a bit of a wander, we settled on a Peruvian
place to grab a light lunch - we ordered a sharing platter and a Cerviché which was about enough for four people. The platter had some questionable items on it, and we are pretty sure one of them was grilled Beef heart. So our plan of having a light lunch was a bit off. Of course I washed it down with a Pisco sour. We had a relaxed afternoon and then headed out for dinner in the pretty Lasterria district, as a birthday treat sent from the UK from the family.
The next day was also a bit of a treat - we headed out into the Maipu valley for wine tasting. Chile is a big producer of bold Cabernet Sauvignons and Caminere so we went to see a couple of the most famous - Santa Rita and Concho y Toro (famed producer of the Casillero del Diablo wine that is commonly found in the UK and everywhere else it seems). These are massive producers and in no way are Boutique vineyards, but the visitor experience is really quite nice, and you are able to wander through vineyards amongst pretty whitewashed villas, pulling grapes from vines (they encourage you
to do this to taste them) and enjoying the sunshine. The Santa Rita, where we went first is the second biggest wine producer in Chile and boasts a unique story, whereby the owner once protected Chilean independence troops in the fight against Spanish occupation - and hence they named their wines after that moment. It's production on a massive scale and we were able to see fermentation tanks, cellar, bottle store and wine library. Of course there was a tasting at the end - and in true Chilean style, it was 3 decent sized glasses of wine, not just a "tasting pour". Sadly, it only seemed to be us and the Americans who drank the whole lot, most just poured it away.
(interesting) factoid for you - many of the cellars in Chile are made with a mixture of limestone and egg white and have been since the 1800s. Apparently it was an early way of providing earthquake resistance to buildings.
We found a nice little cake shop for lunch, and we had the closest thing to a birthday cake, then on to Concho y Torro. This vineyard is the largest business in the whole of Chile and
Smog over the City
Costenera Centre (Latin america's tallest building visible) they own vineyards in Argentina and California too. Here we didn't see as much of the production, but did wander the grounds of the family home and vineyards, before learning about the legend which gives the name to their most famous Casillero del Diablo wine. Apparently when people started stealing from them in the early days of the vineyard, they started a rumour that the cellar was inhabited by the devil. This seemed to be enough to stop the thievery and the legend stuck. This was presented to us, whilst locked in said cellar, by use of a fairly slick projector show. After trying the Cab, Caminere and Sauvignon Blanc - which is actually produced nearer Valparaiso as it needs cooler air - we headed back to the city to start our plans for the next leg of the trip. We picked up a pre roasted chicken from the supermarket for dinner - and attempted to make a home style British roast dinner, which kind of worked. (Instead of a sweet potato we had bought some unknown Chilean root vegetable).
Our final day was made up of a walk around the Merced Central - an old wrought ironwork building
full of fish sellers and restaurants - quite worth a look, but not worth staying, a little walk around the "real" market, and a trip up Cerro Santa Lucia - a small mountain slap bang in the middle of the city with a Spanish fort on the top where the city was originally founded. It gave quite a good view over the city and it wasn't so smoggy. On the way down, we stopped in at a wine bar that was recommended to us by some guys we met in Caye Caulker in Belize - and we were keen to use up our last 10,000 Pesos - to avoid the inevitable collection of loose change from yet another country. I tried a Red Zinfandel after Jo got me into these in Seattle and we sat out enjoying the curb side table in Barrio Lasteria... Until someone started angle grinding right next to us just to ruin the moment.
And then it was done. Our time in South America was over. We headed to the airport for our 13 hour flight from Santiago to Auckland, grabbing a quick Pisco Sour on the way through for posterity.
And a word
of advice - don't try and fly to New Zealand on a one way ticket - it will cause you nothing but problems.
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