Santiago Skiing and Wine Tasting

Hola Amigos! Que tal? (means What's Up - notice my huge improvement in the Spanish Language!)

Skiing at Valle Nevados Chile

We wanted to share some of our recent Chilean adventures with you.  We went Skiing at the Valle de Nevados just outside of Santiago Chile right at the end of their ski season and we managed to catch a blue bird sky day to hit the slopes.  It was pretty warm and the snow was schmooy which is typical of Spring Skiing anywhere but it sure was fun to ski in the Andes mountains and see the beautiful views.  Gary was happy to get Day 1 of skiing in for the season.

Wine Tasting at LFE

We also managed to visit some amazing Chilean wineries and we have been drinking wonderful Chilean wine at every opportunity.  We went to the Santa Cruz wine region just south of Santiago and we had some wonderful tours of the wineries high up in the hills.  One of our favourite experiences was an outside tasting in the vineyards really high up at Luis Felipe Edwards.  The view was spectacular and so were the wines.  We then visited Estampa vineyards as well and enjoyed their fabulous wines. This region experienced a lot of damage from the Feb 2010 earthquake so it was very interesting talking with all the vineyard folks to see what happened.  We had a bit of an adventure getting to the wineries because our rental car had a flat tire and we were not sure if we would actually make it to the vineyards or not.  We managed to pull into a small town off the highway and we felt like Indy Car drivers because the 4 guys who patched our tire did it in record time and it cost 4 dollars.  We still don't know how to say flat tire in Spanish but hand signals and pointing at the obvious can get you pretty far sometimes.

Capsule that saved Chilean Miners Valparaiso

We went to Valparaiso just west of Santiago on the coast and we saw the harbour and all the painted houses on the winding streets.  Valparaiso is a huge port city and the Naval presence is everywhere.  We visited the Naval museum and we saw the capsule that the Navy used to save the 33 trapped miners in the Northern Chilean Atacama Desert mine last year.  It was the one year anniversary of the accident so they had the capsule on display for everyone to crawl into and look at.

We found this cross made out of wine barrels in Santa Cruz wine country where we stayed and we thought it was just a perfect use for empty barrels.
We will now continue to move south as we target the end of the world and Ushuaia.

More tales to come!
Salud,
Pat and Gary

Rapa Nui - Easter Island

Hello Everyone,
We had a simply fantastic time in Rapa Nui -Easter Island. It is a truly special tiny place in the middle of nowhere.  It took almost 6 hours to fly to Rapu Nui from Santiago Chile.  The island is only 24 kms long by 12 kms wide so it is very easy to get around and not get lost. We had amazing warm weather and we were able to tour around and visit all the famous sites on the island in wonderful warm sunshine. The most famous sites to see are the huge Moai statues which are found all over the island. They are simply massive and are made of solid stone. It is one of the world's big mysteries as to how these statues got moved onto their platforms by the sea and after we saw them we had more questions than answers.  Maybe it was the aliens who put them here after all - who knows!

Rano Raraku Quarry on Rapa Nui 

Here we are at the Quarry where the Moai statues were carved. The Moai statues behind us are actully covered up to their necks in dirt which has accumulated over the centuries.  These are full statues and they are very very big.  One of the other mysteries on Rapa Nui is why all of a sudden the people stopped making and moving the statues.  These ones were all in transit down to the coast but for some reason they were simply abandoned and the wind and landslides have filled in the dirt around them. It is a really strange experience to see these deserted statues and wonder what the heck happened here many hundreds of years ago.

Tongariki Rapa Nui at Sunrise

Believe it or not we actually got up early enough in the morning to see the sunrise over these Moai. Anyone who knows me well understands that I am simply not a morning person so that will tell you how important it is to see the sunrise over these statues.  If you don´t believe in powers or spirits of some kind, seeing these statues could change your mind.  There is some sort of weird energy here and you can't help but contemplate the meaning of life when you look at them.  We visited Rapa Nui during the low season so we actually had this entire site to ourselves one morning.  We felt very priviledged to be able to come here and see all this just by ourselves.

Anakena Beach Rapa Nui 

This beautiful beach is near the top of the island and it is where the original settlers first arrived.  The sand is like sugar and perfectly white.  The water is turquoise and crystal clear. There is a restored platform with 7 Moai statues in this picture and it is one of the most important archeological sites on the island.  The weather was nice and warm without any humidity which all combined to make this one of the best beaches I´ve ever been to in my life.  The awesome banana cake and beer sold by one of the vendors here rounded out the whole beach experience.

We have to admit that we left Rapa Nui with a lump in our throats.  We were able hike to the highest point on the island and get a great view of everything.  When we left we were given a feather and a shell. The feather is meant to bring us back some day and when we do that we are to throw the shell back into the sea where it belongs.  Rapa Nui is really a very special place and we can highly recommend it.

We now fly back to Santiago and start moving south.
More news to come very soon!
Cheers,
Pat and Gary

Mendoza Madness!

Hola Amigos!
Since our Bolivian Bicycle and Salt adventures we have been able to recover in Menodaza Argentina and we can say that life is just wonderful again.  Mendoza is all about wine so you can be sure that we are fully maximizing our time here by visiting as many wineries as we can.  There are about 1200 wineries to see so the pressure is definitely on.  One guide worked it out to at least 3 per day for an entire year. We rented bikes (no not extreme Kona mountain bikes like Bolivia) and toodled around to see as many wineries as possible via bicyclette.  We did ok but ran out of steam after lunch which included a bottle of wine of course!

The views are spectacular and we are looking at Aconcagua Mountain which is a mere 6959 metres above sea level.  This is actually the highest peak in the western hemisphere and it is always in the distance here in Mendoza which is absolutley stunningly beautiful.  It is spring time here so all the blossoms are coming out.  The vineyards themselves are still "sleeping" as one tour guide put it but the scenery is just fantastic.

We had an amazing tour of Zuccardi vineyards and we really wish to thank the wonderful folks there for a simply super afternoon.  We got to visit the experimental wine room which includes neat varietals such as Tannat from Uruguay which I am standing beside.  This is now my new favourite wine and I would love to keep whatever is in this tank.  The city of Mendoza is just fantastic and it is really easy to get around.  We were able to try some of the yummy food including a typical Argentinian Parilla which includes all sorts of interesting meats and bits on the BBQ.

Here we have Gary with a real Asado or BBQ.  These guys take their meat very seriously and as you can see they go for the whole meal deal.  The sqaure right down the street from our hotel, the Plaza de Chile, was the site of the Chilean Festival of Independence Celebration and they BBQ'd meat like this for three days in a row.  There was traditional dancing at nighttime and of course more wine.  We had a lot of fun watching everything go down for the festival.

Here we are outside yet another winery that specialized in organic wines and we were able to taste primitive wine or wine that had not been filtered or treated in any way.  I must admit it tasted a lot like grape juice and I think my palatte has become used to the more commercialized traditional wines we all love so much.  Malbec is the wine of choice around here and we have done our best to sample as much as we can.  At 5 to 6 dollars for a good decent bottle it is really fun to sample all the different wines.

We have more stories to tell about our adventures but in the meantime we would like to wish everyone a very Happy Thanksgiving.  We will be missing our turkey but we will be sure to drink some wine that goes well with Turkey to celebrate.
Salud,
Pat and Gary