Chile - Wineries!

Since we were traveling such a great distance to meet the cruise in a country we had never visited that produces some great wines we factored in an extra day for sightseeing. Due to the language barrier and other logisitical concerns we hired a driver and translator, which in retrospect was an absolute stroke of genius. The cost for this service was about $100 per day and my only regret is that our driver didn't speak English. Don't get me wrong, our translator was absolutely delightful. But our driver was a "wine guy" and generally interesting individual with whom I would have loved to share a bottle of wine (after hours, of course!) Thankfully we also had the same team for our transfer to Valparaiso to meet the ship so we were able to enjoy their company for two days.

The first morning we drove to Viña Aquitania on the edge of Santiago. It's a boutique winery and vineyard of approximately 45 acres, but there's nothing small about their wines other than the production. Founded by one Chilean and two French winemakers, with a third Frenchman eventually joining their ranks, this place produces some stunning wines. They have another vineyard in the Malleco valley planted with different varietals that weren't offered for our tasting. If their other wines are even close to the quality of the wines we tasted they must be remarkable as well.

Standing in the pergola atop the fermenting room you can easily see the four borders of the property, which lends credence to the adage of 'good things coming in small packages.' The labels here are still applied by hand and tour groups tend to be proportionally small. Unfortunately their wines are not generally available for purchase in the USA, although we continue to search them out. Hopefully we'll find an affordable source (shipping from Chile is prohibitively expensive for small quantities) and be able to enjoy these wines at home.

On our way to the next winery we stopped for lunch at La Vaquita Echá in Pirque, just outside Santiago. One word of caution - your eyes will likely be much larger than your stomach and your nose will not help your restraint improve! The aromas of meat grilling over an open flame will have your mouth watering and the local specials listed on the menu will be a huge temptation. You'll do much better in a small group (four to six) than you will as a couple. While most of the food is simply prepared it is absolutely delicious. We had a ton of leftovers and were delighted that our translator was happy to take them home. In retrospect we should have insisted that they join us instead of dining separately, as is the company protocol.

Thankfully we had a short drive to Concha y Toro, as I would have drifted into a food coma if I sat in the van for very long! While most people have probably become aware of Concha y Toro through their Casillero del Diablo collection, readily available across the USA in grocery stores and price clubs, there are lesser-known wines produced here that are a bit more obscure. Their flagship offering, Don Melchor, is one of my perennial favorites. Occasionally I stumble across it at Costco at a more reasonable price than what you're likely to find elsewhere. I'll pick up a bottle (as much as I'd love to purchase it by the case...) and put it in my wine cooler for a year or two before enjoying it for a special occasion. Incidentally, Don Melchor is the only wine now aged in the actual Casillero del Diablo. The tour provided our first taste of their Trio collection, namely the Chardonnay, Pinot Grigio, Pinot Blanc blend. Delightfully drinkable and balanced, this is a nice warm-weather wine that we haven't located yet in the states. Note that you'll get a wine glass with your tour, so make appropriate packing plans to get them home safely if you'd like to keep it. While they're not luxury stemware, they are much nicer than I would have expected. Concha y Toro is a huge wine producer and tours tend to be sizable (a dozen or so by my estimation) but once again we were fortunate and only had one other couple on our tour along with two guides.

Dinner for our last night in Santiago was at Liguria, another of the restaurants adjacent to Hotel Orly. They found a server who spoke about as much English as we speak Spanish, and in the spirit of shared adventure and understanding of the limitations we were operating under we ended up having a delightful meal. There's something to be said for stepping out of your comfort zone and we did that in a big way with our time in Santiago. We hope to return some day, after we cross other destinations off our list.

Chile - Getting there

In 2011 Royal Caribbean was repositioning the Mariner of the Seas from San Diego to Galveston. Since the ship is too large to pass through the Panama Canal this requires a lengthy trip around Cape Horn and an opportunity for guests to see some obscure parts of the world at fairly reasonable rates. Repositioning cruises such as this are generally quite long, which tends to make them more difficult to sell, so they make the pricing as attractive as possible to incentivize passengers. If you have the flexibility to schedule a vacation of two weeks or more and enjoy cruising I suggest investigating repositioning cruises as an option. They tend to occur at the change of seasons and may feature a trip around the Horn, through the Panama Canal, or across the Atlantic.

This repositioning cruise started in San Diego with a two week itinerary that ended in Valparaiso, Chile and then continued on another two week itinerary to São Paulo, Brazil. Sailing around the Horn is a bucket-list item and a full month was a bit much for our schedule so we signed on for the second half of the trip and made plans to fly to Santiago, Chile on the outbound leg with a return flight from São Paulo at the completion of the cruise.

Our outbound flight was a bit convoluted, but with the open-jaw booking I was able to put together an

itinerary that combined coach seats on the domestic legs and business class on the international legs for barely over the cost of a round-trip coach ticket had we gone to a single destination. When making similar plans make sure to check all of the luggage allowances for each check-in point, as that will be the controlling factor for your checked luggage. For example, allowances coming from Brazil are greater than going to Chile, so we were able to pack an empty duffle bag to bring home with our purchases.

Our initial flight departed at 7:00 am on Friday and we arrived in Santiago at 5:20 am the next day. While we were jet-lagged a bit from the travel there was only a one hour time change and we arrived to warm weather, it being summer in the southern hemisphere. A couple of tips for arrival in Chile.

• You may have heard that as a U.S. citizen you would be charged a visa reciprocity fee of $160 per person upon arrival in Chile. This is no longer the case as Chile has been added to the U.S. Visa Waiver program. Since we no longer assess a fee to Chileans, they no longer charge us a fee. Immigration officials are polite and helpful.
• Chile is militant when it comes to agricultural import restrictions. Your suitcases will be X-Rayed upon entry. Chile is geographically isolated (Andes on one border, Pacific the other) and they would like to keep invasive species and disease out of the country. Can't blame them for that.
• There are ATMs in the arrivals area, just past customs. I suggest checking exchange rates before you leave home and making a few notes. At ~685 Chilean Pesos per US Dollar things may seem a bit overwhelming, especially if you've arrived on an overnight flight. Amidst the fog of jet lag your head will spin as you try to digest the pre-determined withdrawal increments. Selecting something in the mid-range you're not sure if 50,000 Pesos is a reasonable amount of pocket money to start with or if you just purchased a car and may not have enough cash to survive the rest of your trip!
• Relative to the above point, a quick reference (either an index card or a note on your phone) to maintain a frame of reference for price conversions is helpful. You can always pull out your phone and do the math, but I suggest having at least $5, $10, $20, and $50 amounts at-hand for convenience. $1 and $100 are pretty straightforward, but add those if they make your more comfortable. When you see 5,000 pesos for a burger and fries at a cafe it's comforting to glance at your reference and see that it's about midway between $5 and $10.
• To that end, make a reference for each country you'll be visiting as they all have different currencies and exchange rates. For example, our itinerary also included Argentine Pesos (~14 per USD) Uruguayan Pesos (~30 per USD) and the Brazilian Real (~3.60 per USD)

It didn't take long after arrival for our first language-barrier adventure to begin. Originally we booked a room at the Hotel Aubrey but changed to the Hotel Orly because of availability due to shifting dates. We notified the Aubrey via email, but things got a bit confused and thus began our first adventure. We were met at the airport by a driver who spoke as much English as we speak Spanish, which is to say almost none at all. But he was holding a sign with our surname on it (reasonably rare

most anywhere in the world) so all was well. He was exceedingly polite, immensely helpful, and a consummate professional.  Unfortunately he was from the Aubrey and there was another driver standing around there somewhere, also with our name on a sign, that we never saw who was from the Hotel Orly. As we pulled up in front of the Aubrey I pulled out my printed information on the Orly and, after a bit of language butchery, he delivered us to the correct/wrong hotel - depending upon your point of view. The gentleman at the Orly helped us sort things out with the driver, whom we tipped generously for the mixup, and got us checked in to our suite located a few doors down. We offered to compensate the abandoned driver but he would hear nothing of it, so our initial impression of the Orly exceeded our already high expectations based on prior research.

Our suite was spacious, well appointed, and immaculate. The Orly is located on a quiet, shady street with several cafes and restaurants with more of the same around the corner and a subway stop just a couple of blocks away. After a short nap we enjoyed lunch at a cafe adjacent to the hotel consisting of some of the best ceviche to have ever crossed our lips. If you're a fan of avocado you will love Chile, as it is plentiful and ridiculously inexpensive (~750 pesos, or just over $1 for a kilogram, as compared to $1 per avocado in the states.) After lunch we successfully navigated the subway system, even with a language barrier, and went to the Plaza de Armas.

The plaza was stunning. Dominated by the Catedral de Santiago on the west end and accented by tree-shaded chess players and a large statue of Don Pedro de Valdiva, a Spanish conquistador who founded Santiago in 1541. We tend to gravitate towards cathedrals and churches, as they are often the best preserved examples of ancient architecture. The intricacy of design and construction are also quite telling, so you can learn a tremendous amount about a region and culture just by taking time to walk through one of their larger churches. The sqyare itself is fascinating, you could spend hours just sitting and watching people, if it suited you. Chess games range from intense to casual and, on nice days, the fountain is filled with frolicking children. If people watching isn't your cup of tea you can wander through the Museo Histórico Nacional (National Historical Museum) where you may even meet a local that is interested in where you're from. We had an exchange with a young lady of about age eight using maps and gestures, as she spoke no English and our marginal Spanish was quite useless. Note that photography isn't permitted in the museum, but if you enter through the exit, as we did, you may not notice the posted signs until it is too late.

Our adventure complete, we returned to the hotel for a break before enjoying an excellent meal at the Cafetto by Park, located in the main building of the Orly. As is the case in many Chilean restaurants dinner will start with a Pisco Sour, sort of a lime daiquiri concoction that packs quite a wallop. Sip gingerly, as they go down much too easy and too much is never a good thing! The menu offered a vast assortment of choices from soups and salads to traditional Chilean dishes. The wine list is extensive and prices are shockingly reasonable when compared to the mark-ups usually seen in U.S. restaurants. Between the food, drink, and atmosphere the experience is absolutely sublime.