So we leave the Island for the continent we arrived from 10 days before. Early in the morning we head to the airport which is just few hundreds meters away from the guesthouse, but Oscar is driving us there since he has to pick up some new lucky people.

Arriving at Santiago airport we pick up our luggage and head out towards the bus which will bring us to the city center. First, however, we need to crawl through a horde of taxi drivers, coming at us from every angle. We stick to our plan and make it to town by a cheap and comfortable bus. The hotel we were planning to stay at, was full so we decided to stay at nearby hotel Londres. We find that the hotels in Chile are far pricier than in Peru, so we are not impressed so far! Our first day in Santiago will just give us the time to visit the plaza de Armas, which is not particularly neat, but still retains its colonial charm. On one of the side there is the cathedral and on the other the very nice national museum which has a detail collection of the history of Chile, before and after the conquistadores.

Not far from Santiago lie its twin harbor cities Viña del Mar and World Heritage city Val Paraiso, which preserves its original colonial buildings. This is a weirdly shaped town which has grown around a bay and expanded over the nearby hills. To reach the part of town on the high level there are some old elevators which operate like buses and cost a few pesos. The town doesn’t have much to offer and it’s not very clean either, but its people are proud of it anyway.

On the other hand, Viña del Mar is a more developed beach town, with some really nice corners to just lie down in the sun or have a coffee or a walk along the water front.   Done with the beach we head north to Los Andes for a day and then back to Santiago for the wine tasting experience (well worth it). The wines of Chile are rich and diverse due to the variety of microclimates found in the little valleys from the north to the central part of the country. The wine business in Chile is huge and the country’s main export (70%), both to America and Europe. Our first tasting takes place at the beautiful bistro of Baco, in the part of town called Providencia. This cozy bistro offers tasting by the glass with a full culinary experience on top of it. We might be overdoing it a bit ordering a full 9 cheeses plate, but it was just great!   On a beautifully sunny day we head to the South of Santiago area, crossing the river Maipo to get to the vineyards of the most famous wine producer in Chile: Concha y Toro. Here we get to visit the amazing

property of the family and see the vines in their amazing autumn colors: Pinot, Chardonnay, Merlot, Carmenere, Traminer and the most popular Cabernet Sauvignon. We get to visit the regular wine cellars and also the old Casillero del Diablo (as known from the TV ad). After that we get to spend some time with a sommelier (wine taster) to learn some very interesting facts about different red wines. One more great cheese plate comes along!

One more interesting vineyard is just in the east end of town: Cousiño Macul. Even if only their reserve wines are produced here nowadays, with the main production moved to a new place, the place still keeps the cellars and shops available for the visitors. The whole production is much smaller than Concha, but their Riesling is a must!

We don’t have time to see the southern part of Chile, which is said to be an amazing place for natural wonders and landscapes, but we are soon on our way to New Zealand which will for sure have a lot of great pictures to offer! A long flight ahead and…oops…we’ll cross the date line and miss a whole day of our lives!