We arrived in Santiago four hours before we left New Zealand. No that's not a typo. It is a wierd and disruptive side effect of flying over the international date line in the middle of the Pacific. Since Chile is 16 hours behind New Zealand, the time didn't quite work out. We left Auckland at 4 PM on August 6th, and arrived in Santiago, Chile at 12 PM on August 6th. It was a very strange, and disorienting feeling. We've been here four days, and we still haven't gotten over the jet lag.
(In the distance, you can see the Andes rising above the city. They are quite impressive.)
Santiago is a bustling city of 6 million people. At first glance, we thought that it was a bit run down and dirty. That was only because we drove from the airport through some of the more seedy parts of town. Our hotel is also in a bit of an unsavory area, and during our first few days here we weren't all that impressed.
Then, on the third full day in Santiago, we decided to take a tour of the nearby twin cities of Valparasio and Vina del Mare. Anna will talk more about that day in the next post, but we were able to see more of Santiago before we left, and our opinon of the city improved. There is a lot of nice parks throughout the city and several malls that have very nice designer stores in them. We were also surprized by how many American store chains are present here. We've seen Domino's Pizza, TGI Friday's, McDonald's (of course), and even ADT Security on many of the buildings.
The city itself is a mix of Spanish and Chilean architechture. We saw several beautiful churches and government buildings. It is obvious that the Spanish had a heavy influence in the development of the city, but the Chilean people are still very proud of their heritage.
The people here are also fairly friendly, and put up with our limited spanish pretty well. Though you can tell that after a while of difficult communication, they begin to get frustrated. But we can usually explain what we want with a few words and some pointing. We will be in Spanish speaking countries for the next month and a half, so we should begin to get better at it as we go. We can already tell, after only a few days, that we are picking up more words, but I think it's safe to say that we understand much more than we can speak.
On our last full day in Santiago, we took a tour of the Santa Carolina winery. They produce over 40 million litres of wine per year, making them the 4th largest producer of wine in Chile. Chile itself produces over 800 million litres of wine per year, and 80% of that is exported. Their biggest customer is the U.K., followed by the U.S., and then Brazil.
(The bottle was dusty, but the liquor was clean...)
The winery itself is situated in the middle of Santiago, in the location where the first wine makers from France set up shop in the 1800's. The winery itself was established by a French man whose name I have forgotten. His wife's name was Carolina, which is where the winery gets its name. Because the winery is in the city, it can not have its fields nearby. Their vine fields are located around the Mariposa Vallley, and the juice from the grapes are trucked in to the winery.
The guide took us around the building, looking at the old vats that were once used for wine. They were very large, made from wood and could hold up to 25,000 litres. There was one vat, that we didn't see, that could hold up to 48,000 litres. Talk about drowning your sorrows.
(Ye olde vats)
We also saw some old wine making machinery, and were taken down into the wine vault. It was a large, underground chamber with vaulted brick ceilings, filled with wine casks. It had been kept in almost the same condition for the 152 years that the winery has been opened. There were even candles in wall scones burning to give light and add to the atmosphere.
This was the entry to the cellar. It has a bit of a feeling of entering an old dungeon. Except, instead of people, there are gallons and gallons of delicious wines.
Inside the cellar. Notice the candles on the columns. Talk about keeping it true to the original atmosphere.
While we were there, we were able to taste several of the wines. They were very good. One variety, called Carmenere, was originally believed to be a Merlot and was even entered into competitions as such. Apparently, after many judges commented on how strange Santa Caraolina's "merlot" tasted, the winery had an expert look at the vine leaves and determined that they were the only winery in Chile to have Caminere vines. Even though they initially made a mistake, they are very proud of this wine.
In the 1860's the winery won the gold medal at the annual international wine festival in France. This was the catalyst that first put Chile on the map for wine making. After tasting several of their wines, we can see why.
Tomorrow, we leave for Peru and the beginning of the Inca trail. We had initially thought of Santiago as just a stopover place before we moved on, but we are both glad we were able to see more of Chile, and have realized the kind of cultural experiences that this country has to offer. - Scott
No comments:
Post a Comment