Santiago to Santa Cruz, Blog 2

Santiago to Santa Cruz  Blog 2

The countryside from Santiago to Santa Cruz is like a combination of the Napa Valley and California’s Central Valley.  Peach, pear, and apple trees extend for miles.  There are two types of grapes grown in the area:  Chilean table grapes, which we get in San Jose, grow on tall vines forming a canopy with no space between them.  The wine grapes look more like the traditional vines you see in California, Italy, and other wine growing regions.

The hotel in Santa Cruz is beyond charming—simple and small from the outside but large and decorated in a colonial style inside.

The floors are typical tile.  At the top of each of the four floors, is a sitting area with beautiful stained glass.  Outside is a free formed swimming pool, bars, and a spa.  The dining room is exquisite with a stained glass vaulted ceiling d with huge vases of fresh flowers around the room.  Our room has a small balcony overlooking the plaza, which will be noisy tomorrow night as it’s the celebration site of the annual grape harvest.

We met our tour group this evening.  Again, we are probably among the youngest people on tour which includes couples, pairs of single men, pairs of single women (widows & widowers), and a family of 7 who are ethnically Indian but the core family was born in Kenya.  I don’t think we’ll form any close friendships with any of them as we have on past trips (you know who you are), but they are all pleasant.

Our main guide, Roberto is outstanding.  He is probably in his

60s and has over 30 years of experience.  He is funny, knowledgeable, and more than competent.  If first impressions continue, he will be the best tour guide ever!   Marco, our guide for Chile, is equally wonderful.  Tonight we watched a demonstration of how to make a Pisco sour, a drink made from an alcohol called Pisco.  Evidently there is a very real and serious dispute between Peru and Chile over who “owns” the Pisco sour. Our guide asked who wanted to taste the first drink.  One of the Lees quickly jumped up!   I’ll let you guess which one.   We also had a demonstration of how to make empanadas followed by a tasting.  They were delicious.

We had a buffet dinner with about 8 different salads, fish and turkey, rice and potatoes followed by about 5 desserts including one of the best I’ve ever had—a crème caramel (flan).  Since this is a wine region, we had a choice of a cabernet sauvignon and a pinot blanco. 

Tomorrow we are going to tour a museum, have lunch in a private home, and go wine tasting.  Someday I’ll go on a beer tasting tour—oh, wait!   I did that in Germany!

Hasta luego.