4/8–Valpo walking tour

Today we are going into town for a free walking tour.  We love the name of the company “Tours 4 Tips.”  Excellent way to tell participants that while it is free to join, the guides really do only work for tips.  Smart!

Luka is the breakfast chef today, Ed goes with his standard – fried eggs, but I just ask for banana and apple – I’m not that hungry. And even still, I get a feast – I swear Luka gave me 2 or 3 bananas, sliced and arranged beautifully and a whole apple.  Goodness!  I still can’t finish everything.  Oh, and the freshly blended mango peach juice. Forgot about that.  Sigh…well…we’ll be well fortified for our walking tour!

We leave early and walk down the hill to see if the internet cafe is open. We need to print our our cruise pass since we’ve changed rooms, but the cafe isn’t open yet – so today we hop the 602 bus which is a little more direct than the 505.  I have a brain fade and try to give the driver 8000 pesos instead of 800.  He patiently explains in Spanish that I’m an idiot (just kidding – but he did explain it was 800 not 8000), and takes a 1000 peso bill and gives me change.  Wake up Cathy!

In town, we hop out at Plaza Soltomayor which is where our tour begins, but also where I had found an internet cafe online.  We find the cafe, but it’s not what we want. Just a cafe with wifi – and after a great pantomime and Spanglesh conversation with the waitress, we go over to the square and hang out on the bleachers (without our print out – because I can’t remember how to say “print” in Spanish) to wait for our tour.

The tour guides arrive in their red striped shirts – very easy to find – and we move across the square to introduce ourselves. After about 15 minutes, there is quite a crowd.  We get split into two groups and head off with Ignatius, our tour guide, who is a born and raised local Valparaisian.  Great! 

Ignatius guides us through the town – explaining the history of the city, teaching us a few Spanish words and explaining the murals and wall signings all over the city.  We start in Plaza Sotomayor – where Ignatius explains are some government buildings and is the largest square in Valpo – but not necessarily the “main square.”  Here in Valpo there are a few squares around, but none are designated as the main square – like every other town that has a “plaza armas.” I can’t remember why – something to do with the military maybe? It’s a big naval port city.

Next we move to the oldest Ascensor (elevator) in the city where we learn about how the city evolved from the rich living in the flat part of town (as evidenced by lots of large grand houses, now either used as commercial buildings or dilapidated and deserted (reminding us very much of Havana) and the poor living in the hills, to the opposite now, the poor in the flat part, the rich in the hills and beyond.

As we move down the street we see the remnants of these desecrated buildings.

Next we get to take a bus ride!  We are going to take the “O” bus, which could be considered the scenic tour bus. It runs all along the ridge roads with fantastic views above the city, and if you stay on it, it will even take you all the way to Vina del Mar – all the for the low, low price of 50 cents.  Crazy.

We pack onto the bus, and off we go up into the hills, Ignatius has promised a really fast and crazy ride, but it’s not so nuts. When we get off he says he was disappointed, it was very slow this time.  Ah well, it’s still fun on those little buses.

So now we are up in the hills, at, of all places, Plaza Bismark, which is where we stopped on Wednesday to get our bearings and figure out just how the hell we were ever going to make our way to Costa Azul!  Funny.  It’s a much more relaxed visit today, and we stroll about the nice park snapping pictures of the mosiac columns as well as the view.

We head downhill from here, making our way to the Parque centro cultural Ex-carcel – which is the original prison, now turned into a cultural center. Here we get a lesson about Allende and Pinochet, the dictatorship and how the citizens lived and coped. The prison is a good example of just how deep the pain of the dictatorship still runs.  The whole complex is a lovely cultural center, with beautiful gardens and picnic areas, the prison building itself an artist studio now.  but because of the memories, the houses around the prison could hear the inmates screaming and crying when being tortured, no one will come here. They don’t want the memories. 

After a restroom stop and some more political history, we continue heading downhill, stopping at a water tank that displays excellent examples of Chilean art – wall murals.  After Pinochet, when the dictatorship ended, the Chilean people were finally able to freely express their thoughts and speech – and they did so through murals all over the city.  Here in the water tank are examples of those murals – the bird and the faces – all of which peacefully co-exist with the “signatures” that abound around Valpo and other cities. These “signatures” are not at all like the gang “tagging” we see in other areas – they are simply an artistic expression of the person signing their name or group identity.  And they never, ever interfere with the murals.  Each artist holds the others’ work in great esteem so they don’t try to desecrate or paint over one another.

Further down the hilly streets we get to another little park area with lots of mosaic and murals. Here, Ignatius shows us some murals you can only see from up here (they are orange in the distance, the picture isn’t the best) and explains there are murals all over the city using different walls of buildings and different angles that can only be seen in various positions from above, below or from right or left.

Through an alleyway we come upon a huge mural depicting mother earth – and a huge explanation of the tribes of Chile and sacrifices they made and lots of other stuff I don’t remember.  But the artwork is incredible!

As we are walking further downhill, we pass a great long mural depicting cows, in a statement about how everyone “follows” the herd.  It’s one of my favorites.

Then past the craft brewery here – the only one! – that sadly isn’t open – because we would have just stopped there and had a drink and lunch. But alas, on we troop.  Past the guy on the side of the street filleting some huge fish…

..onto the trolley where the Swedish ladies try to tell the local guide that we aren’t standing in the right place to catch the trolley (I thought I’d die laughing), and onto the old trolley for a ride back to Plaza Sotomayor where we will end our tour. All along the tour we’ve had 2 guys photographing our every move, and as it turns out one of them is the owner of the company, the other another guide from Santiago. They are all here for the Autumn harvest festival going on in Casablanca tomorrow (the one that we will miss – by one day!!! – because we are sailing at 4 pm and there isn’t a chance in you know what of us making it there and back to the ship on time – darn it!).  Fun company outing – and in the meantime, we’ll be famous!  They’re taking pictures for their website…so look for us there soon. 

Off the trolley, we have one final destination, one of the old mansions of the rich families that has now been converted into apartments and offices.  We walk up the grand, yet in disrepair, quartz staircase and into the entry vestibule with skylights (now plastic, but originally stained glass), gorgeous woodwork and fantastic wood entry doors with a likeness of the original owner and the family crest.  Neat.

As our tour ends, Ignatius has a surprise for us – Pisco-la! Pisco mixed with coca cola!  He had mentioned it before, so now we get to try it.  Very nice.  This was a great 3 hour tour. Very informative and interesting and a great overview of the city.  They have another more traditional city highlights tour in the afternoon, but we’re good with this!

We head off to find the internet cafe Ed saw on the trolley ride, and walk into a sort of electronic gaming parlor, dark and dingy, with those electronic betting game machines and a guy behind a gated cage.  Again, after Spanglesh, we figure out the word for print – “imprimitur” – and we are directed to #6 upstairs (huh?) to print from the printer in the office.  Ok – we’re fairly fearless.  Upstairs we go – and there on the side of the low ceilinged room (with the oddly pleasant murals at the eaves end of the room) are 3 computers – one of which is up and working at #6. 

Cruise pass downloaded and printed – 300 pesos – 50 cents – we’re back out on the street in search of food.  It’s the typical food gawker gauntlet, and after passing a few potentials we settle on Cafe de Oscar – which has a menu of the day for 4000 pesos (about $6US) which includes appetizer, main and dessert.  We chose Oscar’s because they have Pulpo de Horno (which is weird, because we’ve never seen baked octopus, but we’re game).  So, after more Spanglish, we figure out that Pulpo is really PulpA on the chalkboard (their “a” does NOT look like an “a”) and it is really carne asada.  The only pulpO they have is grilled and it is 7500 – as a single dish.  Our cheapness takes over, and we end up with Merluza frite (which is what I wanted to begin with) and Chicarrones de Pescado – both on  the daily menu.

We both start with Ceviche, which is very good – not as good as Puerto Veijo – but still good.  Then the Merluza and the Pescado, which turns out to be fried fish pieces, including a huge salad.  Works!

The fried fish pieces were better than the Merluza which I don’t think was cooked 100% through. It was warm, but, it was pretty fleshy colored.  Tasted good…and it didn’t make me sick (although I had Charleston flash backs!), but the rest of the meal was great – and it certainly was affordable!  The dessert was the best though….

A popsicle! How cute.  Mine was banana and Ed’s was mango.  Very sweet – and you know what? Perfect end to a nice meal!

It’s only about 2:30, and we sure don’t want to go back to the hotel so we decide to go to La Sebastiana, Pablo Neruda’s home here.  Back on the O we hop, going 5 blocks further than we had before with Ignatius, to the corner where La Sebastiana is located.  Public Transportation here is great!

The house is neat. It’s layout is pretty weird, chopped up and narrow, rising 4 floors up on a ridgeline.  It is, as with Isla Negra, rather nautical in decor (except the big cow soup bowl that Neruda used to mix drinks in for his guests) and focused on the views and the sea.   We can’t take pictures of the furnishings, but we can take pictures of the view.

A lovely little diversion in the afternoon and keeps us busy until it is time to return to Costa Azul.  We take the O back to the square, stop by the grocery store for more sliced meat to snack upon this evening then find the Wild Mouse (otherwise known as the 505) for our giggling, swaying, rocking and almost topsy turvy ride back up to our neighborhood.

We hang out in the dining room again, snacking on cheese, crackers and ham, then chatting with the German girls and Fabian as they play cards and Fabian cheats. We finally head back upstairs for our last night with the dogs and car alarms and the fabulous views of the harbor.

4/7– La Recova Vineyard

We slept long and hard.  Wow.  11 hours – we were really tired. And the only thing that woke us was a car alarm in the middle of the night (thankfully not ours) and the dumb dog barking early in the morning (dog-burgers if I ever get my hands on the mutt).  We wake to a fabulous sunrise (that we should have taken pictures of because Luka and Nina said they haven’t seen it like that in weeks – always foggy in the mornings).

We drag ourselves out of bed and down to breakfast – for excellent drip coffee – yum – and a fantastically huge and satisfying breakfast of fried eggs for Ed and pancrepes for me.  OMG, I’ll never eat again!

The pancrepes are a luscious cross between pancakes and not really crepes, but almost scones maybe? They are thick and fluffy, and topped with sweet cream, served along side Nina’s homemade plum jam and nutella.  Yum!  I’m only hoping I’ll be able to eat lunch today!

Which brings me to today’s excursion – La Recova vineyard in Casablanca.  We’ve researched all the vineyards and they all look great – except one that ages everything in oak barrels.  Not.  Every vineyard makes Sauvignon Blanc, so I’m obviously happy, but they all sound like the typical vineyard experience. Tour, tasting, some have other activities (like doing the harvest, horseback riding, picnics, etc.) and we really can’t decide which to visit.  We’d asked Nina (via email) for recommendations – they can get us a driver for under $100 to take us to 2 vineyards – but she never replied (as it turns out, they’ve not been to the vineyards yet, so they don’t really have any personal recommendations).  Thus, we are on our own. 

There was one vineyard that I found that looked totally different. Small business, one owner, invites you into his home and gives you a personal tour around the vineyards, plus will cook you a duck breast lunch.  There isn’t much information about the place, his Facebook page which is all in Spanish and not much info for us non-native speakers. I decided to email him before we left, and he said he had space for a tour on Thursday.  This was the day we thought we’d have a driver, so we weren’t sure what to do.  We texted back and forth a bit, times, dates, places, settling on details - and in the end went ahead and booked with David at La Recova for Thursday at noon. 

La Recova is set up in the hills away from the main town of Casablanca proper.  As a matter of fact, from Valpo, you turn off highway 68 well before Casablanca.  David had sent me directions (which were fantastic – and included pictures which made all the difference in the world), so we dutifully took the Las Dichas exit and started our journey up and down in the hills and valleys.  We traversed lots small country lanes, one lane bridges and drove through some lovely, scenic territory.  We drive the 20+ km with no troubles and spot the vineyards stretching up the mountainside as we round the last bend.  We are extremely early though (David had originally said 1pm – but we worried that was too late for lunch, and he agreed to 12 noon), and since David is accommodating us early to begin with, we didn’t want to impose. So, we drove to the end of the road, for the scenery, but really to waste time, and made it back to La Recova with a few minutes to spare. 

There are no signs announcing the vineyard, we just matched the picture on the instructions.  So we are hoping we are in the right place. We can’t drive up the road because they are in the process of grading it with a backhoe.  We park at the bottom of the drive, and walk up to see if we are in the right place.    It is (phew!) and David comes down from the upper fields to greet us with hugs and kisses all around.

A wonderfully personable and knowledgeable guy, David invites us into his house and sits us down for a little history and overview of the vineyard.  Originally from Brazil, David came to the area when for an engineering job in Valpo.  He became tired of paying expensive rent in town, and decided to move out into the country. He bought the property from a family that had owned it for generations, built a house for himself to live and began commuting into town for his job.  Because Casablanca has such a wine culture, he became interested in the science of winemaking. And, being an engineer, thought the process intriguing enough to make him want to learn all he could about it. 

He began researching and learning and taking classes, and decided to begin his own vineyard here in the hills. While Chile has a reputation for winemaking, he (and others like him now) began making “new Chilean” wine – new processes, smaller vineyards, different techniques that produce different tastes.  It’s very innovative, and the winery he has creative matches the philosophy.  He takes us outside to walk the vines – where David explains the grapes, the hand harvesting and what to look for and taste to see if grapes are ready to harvest.  The grapes here are very small, not the larger “globe” grapes that produce more quantity of wine. 

He explains the smaller grapes have better concentration of sugar and fruit flavor, which makes for a better tasting wine.  After exploring the fields, we move onto his distilling room – which he created in two shipping containers.  Pretty ingenious! 

The grapes are harvested and put through a small separator from the roof of the containers, then they are squeezed and transferred to one of the stainless steel tanks to begin the winemaking process.  David can access the tanks from the roof of the containers as well and he shows us how he can check on the process of each tank through a trap door he has created.

We get to go inside the winery-containers and sample a sparkling base that is currently being fermented. It’s very sweet and tingly.  Plus we get a taste of the grape juice before the fermentation process begins.  There are more explanations I won’t bore you with, but suffice it to say, the whole operation – run by David and 2 partners – is incredibly interested. Very entrepreneurial and innovative– which of course strikes a chord with us.

The three of us troop through the vines a bit more, then go up to the patio/deck area set up above the water holding tank (which could easily be confused with a pool up on a ridge – especially after a couple of bottles of wine!).  Here, we set up camp for lunch with fabulous views across the valley. 

We open up a bottle of Sauvignon Blanc and one of rose, called “obstinado” which is a special blend David makes with the Sauvignon Blanc base. 

As we relax in the sun, he plies us with empanadas while he goes back to the house to prepare the duck tartar.

The next few hours pass in a blur of great food, friendship and conversation. We talk and eat our way through bruschetta, local cheese and crackelets (saltine crackers), then the main event of duck tartar, salad with local tomatoes, seared duck breast (from the local organic duck farmer down the road and prepared to perfection by David).

The afternoon just evaporates as we touch on every subject imaginable, from wine making (of course) to traveling (again, of course) to politics and festivals and events and people – and well just a nice afternoon spent with great company. After sharing our dessert of fresh fruit, with local honey and jam, with the neighbor’s bees (the neighbor on the next hill past the end of the vineyard rents out his property to people with bee hives, and once we open the honey, the swarms arrive – amazingly so!)…

…we wander up the main road, in search of mora (blackberries). It is too late in the season, so we only find a very few berries left over from the birds. But we still manage to pop a few little morsels into our mouths.

Back to the house we go, where David shows us how he labels and puts the foil cap onto each and every one of his 100,000 bottles.  Talk about handmade!  I get to try my hand at it too – only the bottle is on backwards, so the label ends up upside down!  Too funny.  We do another one, and I get to cap it as well. Then David signs the bottle and gives it to us as a gift.  So sweet!  If only we weren’t flying home – we’d buy lots more to take with us…darn those airline rules!

After chatting for a bit more, we regretfully move toward our car to make our way back to Valpo.    It is so lovely and peaceful here, you really don’t want to leave.  We can see why David settled here and loves it.  What a great way and place to live – and for us we couldn't think of a better way to spend a day.  We are so glad we found David and La Recova and were able to make arrangements for our visit.  In all our travels we can categorize our experiences as “ok” days, good days and excellent days – today was beyond excellent.

We actually make it back to Costa Azul with absolutely no problems (even stopping at a grocery store on the way!).  It’s after 6 when we return, and we decide we are not eating tonight, just snacking. So after a bit of relaxation in our room, we head downstairs to the kitchen/dining room and set up shop in our corner table.  Beer, wine, cheese, chorizo and crackers – and lots of great conversation with Nina and Luka (before the dinner crowd descends!).

Then up to our lovely corner view room for a good night’s rest after a fabulous day.

4/6 - Valparaiso afternoon and evening

Ah, success!  Finally here at Costa Azul…

…where we are greeted by Luka, one of the incredibly friendly and exuberant owners of the place. He and Nina, his wife, are originally from Slovenia, and landed here after traveling around the world for a couple of years. They decided to put down their roots here (at least for a while) and started the B&B 2 years ago.  It is a wonderful place – a cross between a B&B and a hostel – there is a community kitchen where you can cook for yourself if you’d like, but they serve breakfast (included with your room cost) and will also cook dinner for you at extra charge. 

Luka shows us to our room – with the best view in the place – and definitely that is true. We are perched up above the city looking over the bay, and it is an astonishingly beautiful view.

We get settled (basically throw our stuff in the corner) and head back downstairs for Luka’s introduction to Valpo. He is great – showing  us all the highlights, explaining the buses and the collectivos (shared taxis) and giving us restaurant suggestions. 

We are located in the residential section, a far piece (but easy access by bus) from the main city and tourist areas.  It’s great up here, quiet and relaxing.  We get our bearings and head out to the grocery store to stock up our supplies.  It’s just 2 blocks down hill from the B&B – but oh those hills!  We’re talking steep. And dangerous. Dangerously populated with Canine land mines.  Apparently there is this feral dog thing going on here. There are hundreds, probably thousands, of dogs all over the city. Just roaming free.  And doing their business where ever they please – which tends to be on the side walks. So, you must always keep you head down to watch where you walk – makes it hard to watch the stunning views around you – but in the end is better than the alternative!

Surprisingly, the dogs themselves are all very sweet.  They might come up to you, but not aggressively.  They tend to just watch you go by, or follow you along making friends.  It’s like the cats on Hydra – to some degree!  So, we navigate the dog gauntlet down to the store, pick up cheese and chorizo and crackers for snacks, plus our beer and wine, and slog back up the steep hills (steep!!!) to the B&B to deposit our stockpile in the fridge.

After a little rest and wonderfully refreshing shower, we decide to head into town for dinner at Puerto Viejo, a recommended seafood restaurant.  We take the 505 bus, which stops within feet of the hotel door.  It’s only 59  cents each, and we can ride in one direction for as long as we want.  Awesome!  The 505 isn’t the most direct, but it eliminates walking back up the hill, so we hang on tight as the little bus goes careening around hills, curves and various other traffic hazards to finally deliver us into the downtown area proper. 

We hop off at Sotomayor plaza, one of the main squares of the city, where they have cordoned off most of the square and have a large stage and grandstands at one end.  The statue at the other end of the plaza is a good photo opp – so we take advantage of the lighting and snap a few pix. Then we wander through the streets of downtown, looking for the Puerto Viejo restaurant.

Turns out it’s not too far away, just a couple of blocks, and we settle into a table in the large restaurant space, which is not overly inviting – just tables, in a large space with windows. But the food is supposed to be very good – and the seafood offerings are plentiful and well priced.

Luka has told us about Merluza, the local fish, so we are really interested in trying it.  They have Merluza as a starter for $6 US – we try that, as well as Ceviche for $10.  The waiter kept telling me the Merluza was small, just a little fish – but he was just trying to upsell me, because the plate is huge – plus I get a side of fries that could sink a battle ship!  And the ceviche is huge as well, and incredible. Some of the best ceviche we’ve ever had.  I’d eat this alone and forget the rest!  It’s enough food for the both of us…and we still have an entree to share!  Oy!

The entree was a challenge in and of itself!  We were asking questions in our pigeon Spanish, and the waiter spoke decent English, but some of the seafood just didn’t translate. So he goes and gets his phone ! What ever would we do without our cell phones! He promptly loads the restaurant web site (facebook) and shows us all the dishes!  Too funny.  So, we reviewed everything and finally decided on Chorrillana Marisco.  I don’t think we even saw the picture!  But it turns out it is an assortment of seafood overtop a towering mound of french fries (oh we are in carb hell tonight – and we weren’t event trying to be bad!).

Ed makes the most of this.  I’m picking on the fries, and a couple of shrimps, but he likes all those mussel and clam type things, so he is enjoying himself.  I’m just happy with the wine and the fries!

After an enjoyable meal, we make our way back to the street to catch the 505.  Luka had told us we could just flag the bus down anywhere. Turns out not to be so accurate.  You sort of have to be near a designated bus stop to flag them down – as we found out when the 505 flies past us as we are waiving frantically at the driver.  Okie dokie…where’s the bus stop? We find a designated stop a block and a half up the street and have much better luck with the next bus.  800 pesos later and we are in our seats for the ride up into the hills. And oh my God, what a ride it is.  On the way down, we laughed about the wild ride. On the way up?  Holy cow –it’s Mr. Toad’s wild ride combined with the Wild Mouse roller coaster – without rails!  These guys are nuts. They go flying around corners, defying gravity, squealing up the narrow roads, sometimes stopping for fares, sometimes not. We are just laughing and giggling the whole way – while holding on for dear life!  Too fun!

We make it back to the B&B in one piece (a feat in itself), hang out for a while in the dining room taking to Fabian about traveling and his return to Sweden in a few months, then bid everyone good evening and settle down in our room to watch the sunset and the lights across the bay of Valparaiso.

4/6 - Valparaiso

The rental car is relatively easy, if you accept the fact that they blocked our credit card when the agency tried to put a $2500 deposit on it (because we decline the insurance).  Ah well, getting the actual car is easy- we mark all the little dings, dump the bags in the hatchback and off we go.  We have no maps (please don’t ask) only the Maps 2 Go on Ed’s phone, but we know we are heading to Valpo and it is easy to get on the roads from the airport.

Okie dokie.  Airport exit is fine, we head in the right direction, get onto route 68 which will take us through Casablanca (the wine valley) and then onto Valpo.  I’m going to use the time to scope out all the vineyards and restaurants I’ve researched for our wine tour tomorrow.  Highway 68 is fine, it’s straight, good signage, and no worries. And on the way, we get our requisite text and phone call from Chase asking if we made the $2500 charge – yes, we did, unblock the card thank you.  Handled. Gotta love Chase (oh and mobile phones!).

We stop outside of Casablanca, on the road to the Loma Larga vineyard just to stretch our legs. We were hoping they would be open and we could wander around a bit, but the gates are locked, so we just meander up the narrow road near the vineyard and stretch our legs on the side of the road.

Back on the highway, we make our way to Valpo, and take the exit south of town to go up into the hills to find Costa Azul, our home for the next 3 days. We are sort of navigating by the seat of our pants. There are no written directions to the B&B, and while we have a good feel for where it is, Ed and I are thinking about it in different terms.  So…we drive up this road that is under construction, so it is one lane up, up, up into the hills with tons of trucks (all going to the port) which slows the traffic down (because no one can pass) and gets very frustrating (especially when we are operating on so little sleep).  I’m following the maps on the phone and know we want to turn right on Santa Maria – but we never see the street or directional sign.  I see it coming up on the map, but then, there it goes…we’ve passed under it, missed the turn off by 750 meters (because it did NOT say Santa Maria, but local road, and something else), so then, down, down, down we go on this godforsaken road under construction!

I keep looking for the “retorno” signs so we can turn around, but of course there are none. And the traffic going back up the hill is even worse, but….at least we’d be going in the right direction. We finally get to the bottom of the mountain, almost into town, and there is a road that we can turn onto to get back up to where we belong, but alas, it is on top of the freaking tunnel that we are now entering. Damn.  So onward we march, through the tunnel, into town, down at the seaport.  I know we have to be way back up on the mountain ridge, behind where we are right now, but I’ll be damned if I can figure out how to get there.

We get stuck in traffic in the main part of town, by Plaza Soltomayor and the pier, and then finally just turn right (up mountain) on the first street we can, to simply be heading in the right direction.  We are thinking we can just park somewhere, have a bite to eat and chill out for a bit while figuring out how to get up to the B&B, but there is literally no where to park in this city. We drive and drive and drive and cannot find one single space.  So, we head back up the hills, and immediately get stuck on a street where we can’t go in the direction we want, but have to go opposite and end up going uphill – but on the wrong side of the town.

Argh. So frustrating! All these roads are piggly-de-wiggly.  They wind and wind around, very narrow, going uphill, but then suddenly changing and going downhill. It is terrible to try to make sense out of any of it.  We are pulling our hair out!  We finally get onto one street that at least winds around the top of a ridge in the direction of the B&B.  I’ve got it mapped out pretty well, and we make all the correct turns onto increasingly more twisty turny little streets moving ever upwards to the top of the ridge.  We are quite confident in our directions now, we know exactly where we are going, we get to the final street – San Francisco – and we wind our way around on the tiny narrow road until……we reach the incline.  OMG – the freaking road goes straight up.  Swear.  It’s at least a 40 degree angle.  We come around the corner and face defeat. There is no way in hell we are getting up there – not in this little VW Golf with a really loose clutch.  Ed tries valiantly, but it is not happening. That little car is not going up that wicked hill.  Crap!

So, down we go, oh, backwards, until we can turn around – then back down through the twisty-turny roads we go, another one that is straight down at a 40 degree angle (we are praying on the brakes!) until we are back down on the main windy road, and we follow it around to another little road (found on the map) that we hope against hope is not as bad as San Francisco.   Fortunately for us, it is not, and we end up – finally – at the front door of Costa Azul.  Thank heavens.  One wrong turn cost us over 1 hour and a half in driving.  What a crazy, frustrating experience.  (And, no, I did not take any pictures of the wildly narrow and harrowing roads, nor of the fantastic views we had while navigating up and around the ridge lines around Valpo  - I was way too busy watching the map and trying to figure out where we were and where we were going! We’ll make up for that during our stay here.)

4/5 - Off to Chile

It’s travel day. We are starting late – 6 pm flight out of Savannah, so we are just killing time in Hilton Head.  We cleaned, freshened up, decided to go buy a little carry on so that we don’t have to check our bag on the Embraer – just in case we are late in Houston (this flight is new and has been really, really late for the last 2 days – so we are a little worried).  Go home, re-organized the bags, and were hanging out ready to go, when we get a call from our Realtor that someone wants to show the condo. Yes!  We are outta here – show your heart out!  So, off we go to the airport, a bit early, but we’d actually rather be waiting there than cooling our heels in the condo.

(Spoiler – they liked the condo but didn’t like the 2nd story bedrooms – we’ve heard that before!)

Airport time is spent at the Dewar’s bar/restaurant where we had a decent dinner of pork sliders and fried chicken salad – got us through the flight to Houston and the layover until our 9:20 Pm flight to Chile.  All went smoothly – didn’t need to worry about the gate check timing, but you know, that small bag is fine – we fit tons in it, so we might be using this cute little thing from here on out!

Flight to Santiago was actually pleasant.  Decent food, good movies (I watched Bridge of Spies, Ed watched Spotlight) then I slept well (yeah, what was up with those 36 hours of flying from S.E. Asia where I didn’t sleep AT ALL! ), Ed slept but as usual, not as much as me. 

Got in to Santiago early, not that it mattered, and immediately received a text from United saying one of our bags would be arriving on the next flight to Santiago. Bummer!!! The next flight arrives tomorrow – and we are hopeful the bag will arrive – not for our use now, but for the cruise.  Ah well, at least they notified us.

We head to immigration and get through without delay. Down to baggage claim where our large bag is there, but we know the other bag is missing. We approach a baggage handler who speaks no English, and we sort of get him to understand our bag is missing.  He asks for the luggage tag, which I give him, and then he immediately finds it on the carousel.  Guess it wasn’t really lost at all, huh?

We’re relieved, but embarrassed.  Unless of course, this happens all the time and he’s understanding? Don’t know, but we’ve got all our luggage, so we are happy campers.  Off to the rental agency, and then we are on our way to Valparaiso!