I just got back from a lovely get-away in Santa Cruz, and am gonna take some time to write about it before my busy life in Valparaiso starts up again! (Also, Chile just beat Peru 1-0 with a goal in the 92nd minute to take the highest standing in Group C….VAMOS! VAMOS CHILENOS! QUE ESTA NOCHE, TENEMOS A GANAR!!!! Just had to throw that out there :D)
I feel really lucky to have this internship, but I will admit that at times I am jealous of the exchange students here, because they have so much more flexibility in their schedules and way more time to travel. One of my friends put all his classes Tues-Thurs so that he would have a full 4 day weekend to travel if he wanted to, but I work Mon-Fri and then have youth group until 1:30/2 on Saturdays, so that makes traveling anywhere far away next to impossible! Now I really can’t complain, because I’m going to have almost 2.5 weeks of traveling to end my time here, but I was feeling antsy and ready to just get away for a little bit, and Colegio going on vacation gave me the perfect opportunity for a mini-vacation. Monday and Tuesdays I work at Colegio, so that gave me lots of free time this week, therefore I rearranged my 2 English classes on Monday to be on Wednesday and Thursday instead for this week. That gave me Sunday, Monday and Tuesday until my class at 3:30 to jet away for a bit, and I’ve really wanted to visit a winery here…luckily the most famous wine valley in Chile, the Colchagua Valley, is only about 4 hours away! Chile is known for it’s wine and has really built up wine tourism and Santa Cruz is right outside of the Colchagua Valley. I bought a great guidebook before coming here that had recommendations on wineries to visits and hotels to stay at and I was able to find a vineyard named Viu Manent that offered an hour long tour in a horse-drawn carriage of the fields and processing plant, a chance to taste wine in process and a tasting of four wines to wrap things up for only $30 and a gorgeous little bed and breakfast for only $25 a night….how perfect is that?!
I persuaded Luke to accompany me on my adventure, so we first took a 1.5 hour bus ride Sunday morning to Santiago, because no buses connect to Santa Cruz from Valparaiso (the city is small, it’s just on the map because of wine tourism) and from there we had a 3.5 hour ride into Santa Cruz. It’s really popular and common to travel by Greyhound-type bus from city to city and internationally in South America, the bus terminals are humongous and chaotic, with buses between Valparaíso and Santiago every 15 minutes, craziness!! The ride itself was gorgeous, the ceros (hills) of Valparaíso are beautiful, but you can’t see the huge mountain ranges from Valpo, and they were beautiful to see on the bus. Plus it was just interesting to see how different cities look, I’m so used to houses balancing precariously on hills, it was weird to see flat, more ordered neighborhoods!
After arriving we found our hostal, and even though the guidebook had said it was wonderful, I was a bit anxious…until I stepped inside our room and saw my clean, puffy white bedspread, two fluffed pillows and collapsed onto perhaps the comfiest mattress ever…and there wasn’t a bunkbed with flea-filled blankets in sight, THANK THE LORD!!!! Seriously, the vacation would have been worth it for just that bed. The staff were so kind and friendly and it just kept getting better when they gave us a yummy breakfast each morning and the shower was PRIVATE (no naked Chilean women by me!!!). About 2 hours in it hit us how quiet it was in the hostal…it was lovely. I love Valparaíso, but it is busy and loud and chaotic all day and all night and living in the YMCA with pumping techno music and people talking and walking around you all the time just adds to the mayhem. To be able to collapse on my own bed and just read in quiet was so calming 🙂
But we did somehow leave the peace of the hostal and venture out to Viu Manent on Monday. We walked down a beautiful country road to reach the visitor’s center and were greeted by one of the friendliest staffs I’ve ever met, I love that about Chile! I’d asked for the tour in English, just because I wanted to be able to understand absolutely everything and know nothing about wine-making, haha! But it turned out to be a really funny mix of Spanish and English, they were teasing us before the tour that our Spanish was too good to ask for the English tour (which was a very nice compliment to receive :D), but while we did take the tour in English, we had all our side conversations in Spanish, so our guide would forget to switch back to English for the tour, until I didn’t understand a word and asked about it and then he would seamlessly slide back into English…it was great 🙂 Sadly, it’s not summer, so the vines weren’t filled with grapes, but it was still beautiful and I loved the horse-drawn carriage! Visiting the processing plant was really interesting too, we got to try two different wines right from the humongous containers and hear about all the steps that go into making the wine, I never knew how complicated it was! And then the tasting was just delicious…Luke and I took our time with that…and then decided we needed some food in our bellies, haha 🙂 So we decided to splurge at the winery restaurant, and I am SO GLAD that we did, because that had to be one of the best meals I’ve had in a LONG time. I had the most perfect salmon (obviously not better than yours Dad, don’t fret…well maybe I’m being nice, hehe) and grilled vegetables and a tres leches flan, a typical Chilean dessert, to finish things off. We ended up spending about 4 hours at that winery, just relaxing, walking the vineyard, eating, drinking, and feeling pampered for the first time in awhile, it was so wonderful…writing about it makes me want to go back!!
Coming back we were surprised to find out that Santa Cruz has the largest private museum in Chile. The Colchagua Wine Valley was developed by Carlos Cardoen, a major arms dealer that couldn’t return to the U.S. because the US Customs Service put a $500,000 price on his head due to some shady deals with Iraq…weird, right?!?! So he settled in Santa Cruz, poured his money into vineyards and into collecting valuable historical objects. And now his son has started a foundation that runs the museum that houses and expands his collection! I loved the museum, I could look at the artifacts all day…even though reading all the info started to make my head hurt, too much Spanish!! Finally, to wrap up a great day, we decided to be super-winos and buy some wine and cheese (I still get a kick out of being able to buy wine here, I always am worried they are going to card me, haha!) and kick back with a movie on those amazingly comfortable beds of ours. Lame? Perhaps. Perfectly relaxing and wonderful? Definitely 🙂
So all in all, it was very sad to have to leave and return to reality this morning…until I realized that my reality is living in Chile! And got to return to the crazy Chilean soccer scene and my students and work here. I only have 10 more days left in Valparaíso…I can’t even fathom that…it’s crazy!! And I have way to many places here and in Vina del Mar on my “To See” list, so it’s going to be a jam-packed last few days! So I’m going to enjoy my last few days in Valpo to the fullest, even though it was exactly what I needed to get away for awhile…thank you so much Santa Cruz, te amo!!!
(Oh, and if you’re ever in Santa Cruz, I highly recommend staying at Hostal D’Vid and going to Viu Manent, you won’t regret it!!)