(i´ve been reading dave eggers as of late)
Crisp, fresh air… the smell of radiantly-painted leaves as they crinkle beneath our feet…the gleefully dizzying panoramic of the desert, the Andes, the glaciers and the pacific. Chile in autumn, yo. Apologies for the somewhat lengthy hiatus. April is rolling by and I have been anti-tech for awhile. We both read about and saw the events at Vtech...Our thoughts go out to the families and friends attempting to maintain.
The end of March and, well, most of April have been chalk full of painfully long bus rides and rambunctious moments with family and friends. One week left in April!!? We must be in a space/time slingshot.
After a short jaunt back to Arequipa to enjoy some of the night life, we descended and weaved our way to Tacna, Peru, a great place for long walks and acclimating ourselves to the fiendishly dry Atacama desert, which makes up a large portion of northern Chile. We also found our way to a local bodega (winery) just on the outskirts of town called Bodega Don Miguel. The wines were harsh, but that didn’t stop us from a chill afternoon in the desert roaming through the small vineyard and watching a fùtbol match between local cab drivers. Here Carrie attempts to engulf an entire stem full of grapes. She almost pulled it off.
From Tacna, we took a humble, old train straight from the 50's two hours south to Arica, Chile.
Two hours of sand and a beautiful sunset. Pretty much as soon as we arrived, the stark differences between Perù and Chile spanked us nice and sassy like: many more personal cars, rapid-fire Spanish and wallet-thumping prices. We cracked open our Lonely Planet travel bible and found a cool little backpacker joint near downtown called Hostal Jardin del Sol… a little hiatus until the next bus to Viña del Mar. Arica brought us back to the global world... McDo
nalds, blockbuster, etc. Aside from a raging coastline and some beautiful plazas we also enjoyed "El Morro de Arica", a 110 meter cliff that juts out from the city and provides a spectacular view of the valley and the coast.From Arica, we braved a 30-hour bus ride to Viña del Mar to meet up with our pals Clay (Fellow PIM) and Petra (fella PPIM) and Jennifer (Carrie´s sis) and Christian (Jennifer's beau). We then unleashed a tourista fiery I doubt Chile has ever witnessed. Carrie, Jennifer, Christian and I took a mellow bus ride up the coast to a Viña suburb
called Concòn to prance amongst the dunes over-looking the Pacific Jim Morrison-style. The low point of the afternoon involved Christian and I barrelling down a particularly steep dune, tasting fresh sand by the end. At it´s peak, we buried ourselves in the sand, sipping on Merlot and surveying the Burning One as it met the horizon. We continued our exploration of Viña del Mar and Valaparìso,locating some tucked away eats and fantastic walks.
Next, we met up with Jen and Christian (apologies J & C, best pic we had) camped out in a little cottage 45 minutes south of Viña in a place call
ed Quintay. From here, we dressed to the nine (cut-off khakis and t-shirts) and headed to the Casablanca Valley, best known for its white wines. The valley benefits from both the cool, damp coastal weather and the dry, warm mountainous weather. Our first stop was at the ultra-fine Casa del Bosque where we enjoyed a scrumptious lunch, a great Sauvignon Blanc and a yummy Cabernet Sauvignon. I took away a bottle of the Merlot Reserve for later consumption. We spent plenty of time here soaking in the intense sun and hearty breeze. We promptly bounced south to the commanding Indomita winery and zigzagged through the enormous vineyard to the entrance of the “castle.” I will be the first to admit, I was duped by the website´s flowery description…expecting a rustic, traditional winery. Instead, we found ourselves dwarfed by the castle-like façade and ford-factoryesque production layout. The tour, however, was fascinating as it is currently harvest time, so we got to see winemaking in action. The tasting itself was a bit disappointing…three mediocre premium wines, so we respectfully said our good-byes and headed south once again (We did meet a super-cool couple from England on holiday).We ended the afternoon after a short bout with misdirection at the Emiliana vineyard, a beautiful, quaint vineyard that produces several lines of organic (this link is very western-centric and does a poor job describing “organic” from an indigenous or non-industrial perspective, but it was the best I could do) and biodynamic wines. Sadly, there was no tour available that late in the afternoon…so…golly-drab, we were left to try the outstanding wines, stroll through their impressive main house and take in the sun-soaked vineyard surrounding us. We all really enjoyed the Syrah/Mourvedre and Chardonnay, both under the Novas label…yeah, we got a couple of bottle
s for later consumption. We headed back to the cottage and cooked up a raging dinner, re-enjoying our favorite wines from the preceding afternoon. Yep, a delectable day indeed. The next morn, Jen and Christian headed to Santiago for their final Chilean memory.Meanwhile, back in Viña, the nightlife stood at a standstill. We put a fierce stop to that and shook that dance floor like an anxious earthquake (we experienced our first earthquake last week). Of course, we were on Chilean time and didn’t return until the early morn. I awoke a couple of hours later and joined Clay and Nathan (Clay’s br
o visiting from D.C.) in Santiago, where we commenced what seemed like a week-long voyage to “Monumento Natural el Morado,” a small park hovering on the Chilean/Argentine border showcasing a mesmerizing view of Cerro el Morado (a mountain jutting 4,490 meters (14,800 ft) above sea level) and its accompanying glaciers. We experienced an other-worldly sunset, waxed geology and sipped a couple of bottles of red to keep us warm.
After a full day of strolling down a practically deserted road and hitchhiking back to the nearest town, we joined the ladies for a stroll through the Concha y Toro winery and once again enjoyed some spectacular wine. By far our favorite was the 2004 Casillero del Diablo Carmenere. Here, the five of us toast to safe travels, our good fortunes, close family and friends.
A thought about winemaking…although I greatly enjoy a good glass of wine, our experience through Chile has dramatically reaffirmed how obnoxiously wasteful and unsustainable winemaking is. While many varieties of grapes need little water to grow (especially red grapes), large scale irrigation systems are utilized to provide the bone-dry, expansive vineyards with the necessary saturation, draining local aquifers. Waste water from the immense use of fertilizers and pesticides (winemaking utilizes more chemicals that many other forms of agriculture) and subsequent filtration process litters the valleys with tons of toxic water. The oak barrels used to age the reserve wines come from primarily American oak (South Dakota apparently ??) and French oak (how big can these oak forests in France be anyways?). Some trees take anywhere from 60 to 120 years to grow. Additionally, many of the vineyards are enormous and tend to push out small, local farmers with precedence given to the cash-crop-producing wineries over the subsistence farmers. All this put a bit of a damper on the whole thing. My hope is that consumers and governments will put pressure on wineries (especially the large-scale, wealthy ones) to practice sustainable, biodynamic, organic and earth-friendly winemaking practices in the future.
Over the past few days, Carrie and I ducked away from the bustling beach-front to the nearby “Parque Nacional La Campana” where we confronted the challenge of “La Campana,” a 1455 meter (4800 ft) climb straight up from camp with an unreal panoramic of the Andes to our East and the Pacific to our West. By far one of the most difficult hikes, the last 1.8 km took us over 2 hours to
complete and finally relish.From here, we’ll spend a couple of more days in Chile, possibly visiting one or two more vineyards, parting ways with Clay and Petra until wedding day 2008 (Ooooh-Yeahhhh!) and heading east. Our first stop will be to Mendoza, Argentina where we hope to partake in a couple wine tours via bicycle, enjoy some regional Malbecs and buck-up for our organic farm/eco-village volunteer gig at Yacu Yura, a burgeoning eco-village in need of help with eco-building (the use of adobe, cob, recycled materials and otherwise sustainable building methods to blend the natural world with our living needs…more or less), permaculture and organic-gardening. Yacu Yura seeks to combine earth-friendly living practices with a personal and spiritual connection with our one and only. It is a project of the Latin American Institute for Ecological and Sustainable Development, that seeks to build a coalition of ecological-conscious communities throughout Latin America. I’ll add more about this endeavor the next go-around.
John McCain…what a putz. Screaming bomb-Iran as a presidential anthem before one realistic thought of ending our current war has even been uttered (click HERE
See you all east of the
ps. Sorry about the iffy layout. The website differs depending on one's computer and offers limited functionality. Please let me know if any of the hyper-links are incorrect
