The One with the Wine Tasting

After an eventful flight involving us flying from Rio, to Sao Paulo twice (a thunderstorm stopped us landing and then we had to go back to Rio to refuel), we finally touched down in Chile for our 3 day whistlestop visit of Santiago.

Back using Spanish, we managed to secure a taxi, and with our use of Jimmy's El Pato joke, also managed to get a 40 minute Spanish lesson from the Taxi driver thrown in to boot!

The next day we set off to see Santiago. First stop was the Santa Lucia, a random little park full of turrets and windy walkways. It was here we provided much mirth to the locals as we nearly dropped to the ground when the 12pm cannons went off. I thought we were under fire!

From here to the main square with a HUGE Christmas Tree glinting in the brilliant sunshine against the blue sky... very odd! We whipped around the Cathedral, walked to the fish market, and then powered along to the San Cristobal hill topped with a big Mary.

To be honest after the big JC, all other white statues of biblical figures pale in insignificance but it did afford great views of the city, half hidden in haze, but surrounded by the Andes.

The next day we thought we'd do the cultural thing (or boozy thing) and go on a wine tasting tour.

We were jouined by another English couple, 3 Venezualans and a Brazilian. We toured two Vineyards, one small one which only produces 6000 bottles a year, and another HUGE one called Underraga. We learnt about the wine producing process, and then (more importantly) got to taste the finished article.

Sadly, this is where I, at least, came across as a bit of a wine tasting heathen. The couple with us have a house in france and belonged to a wine tasting club (exactly!). So along with the rest of them I swilled my wine, smelt it, (I was told I could smell prunes and raspeberries, to be honest they could tell me it smelt of the back left hoof of a lame Llama, but it just smelt like wine to me!), and thn the all important taste. Yup, wet, tasty and alcoholic... that's pretty much all I'm looking for in a wine!

Needless to say, with the heat, long car trips and wine, I was pretty sleepy by the end of it all!

Next stop NZ!