Sunday is a day of rest and recreation in Chile. In Santiago many of the streets are closed to allow cyclists and roller bladers to cruise the traffic-free city centre. Unfortunately for us the Hertz office is located in a "closed" road. We piss off the cyclists (but how else can we get out of the cycle zone?!) and have a "snakes and ladders" start to our drive to Santa Cruz, not knowing which roads are passable. But all is well and we get onto the A5 south, driving through valleys where vineyards alternate with maize and other vegetables. Although we're on a motorway, there are stands selling watermelon, cherries and strawberries from stands along the hard shoulder. At the toll booths peasants sell a variety of street food.
We reach "Casa Pando", a km outside Santa Cruz, in one of Chile's best known valleys, the Colchagua, just before lunch. It's the one hotel we booked independently and by far the best value of the holiday. Run by Chilean Mariela and Spanish José, it's set in a beautiful garden with swimming pool. Mariela supplies us with information about eateries, wineries, and places of interest. Following her recommendation we have lunch in a stunning Italian restaurant on the edge of a vineyard. During the afternoon we visit local gaucho hat makers, Juan trying on every model before deciding not to buy; an ethnographic museum at Santa Cruz vineyard: and a fascinating craft museum in Lolol.
In the evening just one of Santa Cruz's restaurants is open, La Etiqueta Negra, packed with gringos.
29 December
We follow Mariela's recommendation and visit Lapostolle vineyard - or at least the part of it used to create the Apalta brand, dating from 2005. Lapostolle is a French company (Relais Châteaux, the same owner as Sancerre), and proud of its imported French-oak barrels. We are surprised to hear the extent to which French and Spanish expertise seems to be used to check quality, across the industry. Although wine has been made in Chile for 500 years, the wine industry in Chile is very young; early 20th century is considered deeply rooted.
There are many differences from European wine-making: the emphasis on single-grape blends (a wine can be named as a single-grape variety but include up to 15% of whatever other varieties the winemaker wants to include) - perhaps the influence of the American market; the grapes harvested at night because the cooler temperature gives a better flavour. Ninety-five per cent of Chilean wines are exported. And, because Lapostolle doesn't have a strong presence in Chile, their wines are cheaper in the US and Europe.
The most impressive aspect of the winery is the elegant, modern buildings. They were designed by museum-specialist architect Roberto Benavente. For earthquake-security and natural-chilling reasons, part of the building is underground. It required dynamiting of the granite, and a section of rock wall has been carefully retained, "framed" and lit almost as a work of art. At another point a Foucault pendulum has been incorporated into a three-storey spiral stairwell. (Juan has to suffer our guide's erroneous explanation - it is moved by the earth's movement, not by "a special kind of magnetism"!) When the lights are dimmed in the tasting room a twinkling "starry sky" appears.
The wine-tasting itself is underwhelming: just three, very young wines: Sauvignon Blanc, Merlot and Cabernet Sauvignon. It seems a bit mean. (And this vineyard gives nothing away - the four cabañas it rents out are done so at $1500 per night.) But it's a pleasant, informative experience, and the view from the terrace down the valley very lovely.
We skip lunch as Mariela's breakfast (fresh apricots and cherries, guacamole, scrambled egg, ham, cheese, warm bread and jam) has set us up for the day; and spend the afternoon in the Museo Colchagua. It is part of the same foundation that owns the Santa Cruz vineyard, and the craft museum. The range of exhibits is mind blowing. How can one man have gathered such huge numbers of pieces of pre-Columbian art, machinery, historical realia, vehicles...? He has such status that the collection of artifacts relating to the 2010 mining rescue has been entrusted to the foundation (for which The Independent voted it best museum). It is a compelling display, including drill bits, the famous rescue capsule, letters, technical data, TV footage.
Back at Casa Pando José asks if we'd like to taste a wine, with two other couples also staying. You bet. We sit under the 85-year-old vine planted by Mariela's grandmother, and dripping with ripening grapes. José cracks open a Cab Sauv from a neighbouring valley. It is delicious - better than anything we've tasted that day. Mariela brings out pizza, cheese and jamon and I start to worry we won't have the appetite for the slap-up meal we've planned. José opens another bottle. I try to gauge whether Juan is eating as much as me. I think Yes. So I continue to nibble, and José opens yet another bottle. Now we can't go out - we've drunken far too much to drive. And still the wine flows. I am floating downstream in a fast-flowing current of Spanish and alcohol.
Juan, meanwhile, has been able to ask the question he has been wanting to ask, about the aftermath of the Pinochet era. Mariela reveals that, because of the lack of closure, the wounds have not healed. We also learn how liberal the current government is: as a small business it is very easy to get a subsidy to expand, e.g. adding a swimming pool or hot tub, as they have done. Juan checks he has heard correctly; yes, a subsidy, not a loan. (We later hear how, in Valparaiso, small hotels have received around $12000 to commission street artists to create murals on the walls of their buildings.) But as for health or education - forget it.
José and Mariela answer our inevitable question about how they came to be there. It's a romantic story - they met on a tour during José's two-year world tour after his first wife's death. Now Mariela is the happiest she has ever been.
At near midnight we have collectively put away 7 bottles, and I admit I have consumed more than my fair share. We stumble back to our room, grateful for this precious evening and our hosts' incredible generosity.
30 December
The last part of our Chilean odyssey is north to the coast, at Valparaiso. It's a longish drive as we have chosen the interior route over the Santiago motorway. Arriving in the city we helter skelter up and down the contorted, steeply cobbled streets in confusion. We arrive at our hotel just in time for the "welcome cocktail" (or at least those not recovering from the previous night's excesses), sitting on the top-floor terrace overlooking the downtown.
Valparaiso is like no other city. The psychedelically painted residential area sprawls across several different hills that plunge down to the sea. At their foot are the naval docklands and commercial zone. The city is so steep that half a dozen elevators dating from the early twentieth century connect the different levels. Our hotel, a stylish rebuild from two houses - 3 m doorways, airy staircases, original pieces of art on the walls - is typical of the constructions: you enter the building at one height on one side and exit two storeys lower the other side.
We start to explore the city, quickly turned off by the chaotic, traffic-choked downtown (where we are warned by a shopkeeper to keep an eye on our valuables), retreating back up the hill to a café where we have a modest supper: packet soup and empanada. We will need to find a better place to see in the new year but are a bit freaked out to discover it would set us back more than €250 for the two of us to eat at our hotel. The search continues.
31 December
Aside from its wild house colours, "Valpo" has achieved international status for its street art. In the morning we take a walking tour with an artist (cum sommelier, we later discover!). There are hundreds of murals in the city and he chooses a selection unaffected by the turf war" raging between factions of artists. I learn some new words: "tagging" (adding a signature), "flaring" (holding the spray can sideways to create a soft edge. Behind some images is a kind of visual rhyming Cockney slang. Other artists have established styles using e.g. pastels, or juxtaposition of realistic and figurative, or Surrealist. Art as protest seems to be a thing of the past: One Valpo boy, Inti, is now attached to a Paris art gallery. To buy his services for a full mural would cost the city $300,000. So, on his trips home, Inti just does the odd small piece.
Inti is at the top of his game. But one story Al told us was very embarrassing: an English friend of the famous Banksy was commissioned to paint on a wall and, of all things, chose the national hero, Pablo Neruda. The result was so bad that the city council cancelled the inauguration ceremony.
Our guide, Al, works with a couple called "Un Kolor Distinto". Under their guidance we create a mural on top of the existing one painted on a house next to the hotel.
In the afternoon Juan wanders some more, adding numerous photos to the ever-growing collection, and I do some writing. We have a quiet and enjoyable meal in a nearby hotel, adding layers as the wind picks up. Then see the new year in from our hotel terrace, watching a 40-minute firework display across the bay. Unforgettable.
1 January
After a sleepless night while the whole of the city parties until well after we get up, we have what we think is our last breakfast in Chile. Events take an unfortunate turn, however. At Santiago airport, an accident during landing of another flight causes a 5-hour delay. We wait in our plane as the take-off time is put back and back, and then postponed until the next day. There is a long delay retrieving our luggage, and then huge confusion as 500 passengers mill around trying to get into a shambles of a minibus transfer to a downtown hotel. Having spent the best part of the day at the airport we find ourselves having supper at half past midnight. A bad start to the year but at least this blog is now up to date! Over and out for now.
