Wine, Wine and more Wine

---

5/26 I left off my last travel blog in Cusco. That morning we got up and explored a few museums in Cusco. Nothing too spectacular but I was able to find a really bad pair of sunglasses that take up half my face. You will se that in many more pictures to come. We left Cusco that afternoon and flew to Lima then to Santiago. After a long layover in Lima, we boarded our flight to Santiago. I did, however, find cerviche before I left the Lima airport. This is raw fish marinated in lime sauce which I liked very much. The flight to Santiago was good and I really like LAN airlines. They beat all US carriers any day of the week. We arrived late at night, was greeted by our driver Fernando, and were wisked away to our hotel. We checked in at 2 am and went fast to sleep.

5/27 We met our tour guide - Hannas - early in morning to start our sightseeing and wine tours. We first went to the largest winery in Chile called Cocho y toro. It was a big winery and was very similar to the big ones in Napa/Sonoma. We tried a few wines and then we went to explorer Santiago. I must say that Santiago is a very big, clean, and cosmopolitan city. It has all the comforts of home and reminds me a lot of Chicago or New York. It would be a nice place to live but isn´t the best place to tour as a visitor. After touring the city and walking a while we drove to the top of the biggest hill in Santiago where we were able to see the whole city. We went to dinner that night and went to bed.

5/28 We started out early that morning and drove to a winery an hour south of Santiago on the way to Santa Cruz. The winery was owned by a good friend of our tour guide so we got a special private tour. We were able to sample all of the wines straight from the oak barrels. The winery owner encouraged us to spit out our wine and I soon realized he was correct. We sampled about 30 different types of wines from different barrels so if we didn´t start spitting we would be drunk. That idea is OK for the evening but we still had a few more wine tours to hit that day. After that wine tour we drove to Santa Cruz and toured another winery, again by a friend of our tour guide. We sampled a few more wines there. After that we retired to our awesome hotel called Hotel de Santa Cruz - a must stay if you are in the area. The girls had a massage and I hung out in the sauna. After that we had a nice dinner, went to the casino, drank some wine and went to bed. The end of a wonderful day.

5/29 We started late that morning and drove back to Santiago. On the way we stopped at another winery and had some more tasting then we had lunch at another winery. It was a leisurely day and we visited a handycraft market in Santiago. We spent the night in Santiago that night. Nothing much to report on that day.

5/30 We woke up and hit another winery on the way to Valparaiso. We had a nice visit to the costal town and had a wonderful lunch overlooking the pacific ocean. We drove back to Santiago and went straight back to the airport to fly to Buenos Aires.

My impressions of Chile - The people are very nice and the country is very pretty. The prices are fairly reasonable and the weather was rather chilly. I did found out that I´m not very sophisticated when it comes to wine. Every winery we had to ´explore´ the taste and feelings when we sipped the wine. I really coulnd´t tell the difference between most of them however everyone else seemed to tell the difference. I just looked around, pretended to be taken by the wine and smiled. If I hear the words earthy, elegant, round, green notes and fruity again I might scream. Chile was nice but I´m ready to leave. Now off to Buenos Aires!!!!!!

---