Sunset over Vina del Mar

Mother Nature provided a great sendoff tonight with a breathtaking show of colour as the sun set. We went for dinner again to where we had the most memorable dinner a few nights ago, here in the hotel and as always found ourselves alone in the restaurant until 9:00 ;) when some of the busy weekend crowd began to arrive. We are getting used to it and it certainly does make for some great service and conversations with the servers (usually 4 or 5 of them, it seems). Anyhow, I was able to capture this as we headed back to our room although 'capture' is not appropriate as it doesn't do it justice at all but I wanted to share it. I managed two hours of walking around town today going to the markets where the locals shop and finding prices wayyyy better than what we'd been lookng at in the tourist haunts. That makes sense, I know, but most of the time we get sent to the tourist spots and the concierge was great about mapping out a walk for me that circumnavigated the shopping core. It was great and the best walking I've done all week as I need to be working up to the multiple rounds on the promenade deck that I hope to do daily. We board the ship tomorrow and are looking forward to seeing more of Chile and getting closer to our introduction to the penguins and various other new wildlife. All these dogs are beautiful but not something we don't have at home ;) We have had a beautifully relaxed few days here in Vina del Mar so we are rested up for serious exploring on some of the upcoming shore excursions. Will report in as we go. Take care........xoxo

Another beautiful day in Vina del Mar

Hi, Everyone, We had a bit more activity after our lazy day yesterday so thought I would post some updates on our activities and also the link to some pictures that I uploaded to my Picasa website so as not to overload the blog and if pictures don't interest you then you can take a pass. I will likely keep doing this as it is easier to upload to Picasa/Google. http://picasaweb.google.com/sallyfulton47/ChileSantiagoAndVinaDelMarValparaiso# After a somewhat quiet day yesterday, healing after my sun exposure (right back to normal glow today ;)today we did our tour and it was very interesting. We toured Vina del Mar and then over to Valparaiso (can't distinguish the line between, somewhat like TO) and what a difference. Vina is where the Santiaguinos come to spend the summer and many own apartments here on the ocean. Valparaiso is the very old port city and carried that character. I would suggest Valpo more bohemian and Vina more bourgeoisie. We rode the 100 year old funicular up to the Navy Academy and it stayed on track the whole way. There was a bit of a craft market at the top where I was able to buy a small watercolor of the site. What an interesting city, built on the very steep hills coming down from the Coastal Mountains to the sea. In the earthquake of 1906 most of the city was absorbed by the Pacific and when you see the cityscape today with the amazing multi-colored houses on the hills one can only wonder how vulnerable they would be to another 'tierra moto'. Near the hotel Vina boasts a "flower clock". Given that we see so many of them at home, we weren't overly impressed but today discovered why it is always mentioned by everyone when praising their city. It was installed in commemoration of the World Cup being held here in 1962. Given that all of South America is football crazy and Chile is definitely no exception, this explained it. On our Andes tour we met a Brazilian couple who remembered that year only too well as Brazil won. We were dazzled by their recall but then remembered how many Canadians would be able to remember the details of Stanley Cups or World Championships in hockey. Tonight we went to a great seafood restaurant for dinner. We asked the concierge for a place that he would go to that was informal but good seafood and he chose perfectly for us. We made a reservation for 8:00, by ourselves, as usual and when we left at 10:00, having taken our time and enjoying it hugely, the restaurant was filling up with locals and many of them with school age kids, just sitting down to dinner at 9:30 or 10:00 and that really means 10:30 or 11 before actually eating dinner. We were just beginning to feel very adult having dinner at 8:30 or 9!!!! My salmon might have been the best ever and Maggie would say the same of her sole. There is just something about fish caught and eaten the same day. I have posted a picture here of our hotel with the pubic beach in the foreground and one of the navy ships offshore (about 10 of them are in the Bay doing manoeuvres). It is really funny to see this crowded beach with loads of coloured beach umbrellas on a very hot day with all of these people just standing on the edge of the surf. The Humboldt Current brings very cold antarctic waters to the beach and only the very hardiest will venture into the surf beyond their thighs. The kids may try to do a little body-surfing but not for long. It looks like a beachfront on shark watch but apparently these waters are too cold even for them. Temp was in high 20s today so it does seem strange to see. We will likely use tomorrow morning for some errands as we want to check out a pharmacia (just for the fun of it ;) and maybe the art museum before we head to the ship on Saturday. You all stay well and we will talk to you soon. xoxoxo

Vina del Mar

It is never-ending. Just when we thought the weather couldn't possibly get any better we arrive in Vina del Mar. 30 degrees, not a cloud in the sky and with a constant cool breeze blowing off the Pacific so that at no time does it feel overly hot. Dangerously deceptive, however, as with the aforementioned ozone being so thin we have to be hyper-vigilant about not staying out in the open sunshine for any long periods of time. At least not until we have a little more of a 'base' on us. Well, we had yet another adventurous day today. We had a beautiful drive through the Casablanca Valley (largest vineyard area in Chile)and the Coastal Mountains and arrived just in time for a beautiful lunch on the patio overlooking the Pacific. It was clearly the afternoon to sit by the pool so off we went. There are 3 pools. One is indoors (not today, of course) one is a beautiful outdoor pool overlooking the ocean and with a large patio for sunbathing. Beside it are some stairs leading down to a salt water pool that is fed by a tidal pool. Our server told us that yesterday there had been some enormous waves late in the afternoon that had washed over the pools and sent people screaming off. Now, I mean these waves had to be 4-5 metre waves in order to do that and we're thinking, yeah, right. Sure enough, around 3:30 after we had moved out of the sun and were sitting at a shaded table, these waves start to roll in. They came crashing in over the rails of the patio, into the pools and washing everything away that was on the ground. My Teva flip-flops were in that category although they aren't alone as many, many were washed away with them. It really would be quite funny if it weren't for the fact that they were favourites. I did get a great video of one of these waves hitting us but the file is too big to put on the blog. When I get a chance I will put it on my Picasa web page. We have just returned from the best dinner yet in Chile. We thought we were heading to the most informal restaurant in the hotel to have perhaps a hamburguesa or empanadas and instead found ourselves looking at a very fine menu presented by a very fine chef. Maggie had calamari and a risotto with osso bucco and I had the best caprese salad ever and fettuccine with crab in a saffron sauce. Absolutely fabulous flavour but the presentation even surpassed that. All in all, most remarkable, given that we were absolutely not expecting this. Almost made up for the loss of my Tevas. I got wayyyy too much sun today in spite of my knowledge of the depleted ozone and railing on about it with you yesterday. Just plain dumb but there you have it and little miss brown person has suggested that it might be safer for me to sightsee or shop tomorrow. Although I am covered in arnica and various other healing unguents I am not sure it will all be 100% by tomorrow so I am willing to sacrifice myself to a day of shopping/touring. Mercado Centrale will be on our list of stops here as apparently it also is filled with wonderful seafood restaurants where the fishermen take their catch directly to the restaurants. We are definitely slowing down our pace and moving to the very relaxed rhythm that pervades this country. Everyone is very efficient, everything is on time but it all seems to be done without any need for rush or urgency in order to attain it. I have yet to meet a Type A. I must look up the stats on heart disease here. :-) Everyone be well. Talk to you soon. Love, Sally xoxo

Andes and winery tour

This was another beautiful day in Santiago and our last for a month as we will be back for a day on Feb 23rd before we fly to Buenos Aires. We have found it to be a city of friendly, beautiful people and it is evident everywhere just how clean, well kept and maintained for the enjoyment of its citizens it is. Parks are everywhere with play areas for children and benches line all of the streets for people to just sit and watch the people go by. I would have to say that the only negative we have experienced is the air quality which is probably comparable to a reasonably bad day in Toronto in the summer. Today when we went up 3000M into the Andes and then I rode the chair lift for another half hour up so I'm not sure where that got me but the air was pristine and the breezes carried what seemed to be a truly puified air. At least that was while I was on the chair lift. The climb from the chair UP to where the restaurant and main buildings were was a killer for me. It's not that it was all that far but the lack of oxygen and the fact that there had been no time to acclimatize to it was really quite tricky. It involved many stops and a slow pace in order to make it back to meet Maggie and our bus but I was somewhat gratified to see that people much younger than myself were having to go at the same pace and style. It was, however, worth the trip for sure. The Andes, at least this part of the range, was very volcanic in appearance as I think this picture will show. There are 2000 volcanoes in Chile, 50 of which are active and 3 of them are in the vicinity that we were today. Earthquakes are quite active here, as well although the last major one (which severely damaged Santiago) was in 1976. The one that completely destroyed Valparaiso and Vina del Mar where we go tomorrow was in 1906. Apparently tremors are felt here all the time but as yet, we don't think we have experienced anything. Tomorrow is another day:-). The tour of Santa Carolina winery was fine but with all of the winery tours in all of the places in the world that we've done, the best in my view, is right in Prince Edward County! The buildings were cool, though, dating back to 1875 and had been lovingly restored. My internet connection here seems to be spotty and this blog was published with the last half missing so I am sorry if anyone was confused. I was :-) Now, we have just returned from another wonderful dinner at Tierra Noble, a very classic Chilean restaurant where we decided to have beef as a change from the fish. A steak and wonderful spinach salad that they called "Popeye" and pronounced papaya, for obvious reasons, brought yet again another smile of satisfaction at the end of a great day. Tomorrow morning we have a car picking us up for the two hour drive to Vina del Mar which in itself is reputed to be a beautifully scenic journey. Will check in from there. Hugs to all..........sf.........xoxoxoxo

Dwindling ozone layer is apparent..........

The guide books mentioned that sunscreen is a good idea here as the ozone layer is much thinner than in the northern hemisphere. One can feel it as walking around the marketplaces and streets a pink tint begins to appear on the skin. I don't think sunscreen is a big seller here and that people, mostly dark-skinned, of course, manage their "sun" time. We have been using sunscreen on our face but by the end of yesterday and today a healthy-looking glow is beginning to develop. Not a bad thing, considering that we both were sporting the pasty winter-whites. Happily, this one is not a lesson that's been hard learned. Our dinner at Mestizo (not Mephisto as I mentioned yesterday) last night was nothing short of spectacular. Chilean sea bass for Maggie and grouper for me (apparently, also another Chilean specialty) were simply perfection. A beautiful location beside a park and as we sat on the terrace the black-necked swans wended their way around in the lily and wild grassed ponds right beside us. I didn't take my camera and have now decided that it is best not to leave it behind at all as one never knows when the greatest photo op will appear. This was one........... We went today to Pueblitos Los Dominicos, a "village" on the site of an old Dominican monastery that houses over 200 artisans and crafts people and throughout has wonderful displays of cockatoos and other live birds. It was a delightful way to spend a Sunday in a city where many other activities are closed. A lot of walking and a lot of sun so we have come back to our hotel to rest before dinner and hopefully have an early night before our 8:00 departure for the Andes in the morning. I will try to find some better shots to include in the Andes blog. xoxo

1st day in Santiago, Chile

What a wonderful day today, wandering around in a city of 6.5 million people (40% of Chile's population) feeling like a medium sized Canadian city. Belleville, perhaps? Okay, so maybe a bit bigger but we are left wondering where 6.5 million are and whether they count the cemeteries. We did one of the hop-on/hop-off tours and only had a few bumps, so to speak. The bus failed to pick us up at our assigned stop, flying right past us and we know it was the right spot as it is where, late this afternoon, it dropped us off. Perhaps we didn't look like "friendlies" but it resulted in us taking a cab to the funicular to go up to San Cristobal. Cab fare 2740 CP. Maggie thought it was 27400 CP and unthinkingly gave the cabbie 30,000 CP and feeling good about rounding it up as tipping isn't necessary here and most people just round up on things like cabs. This means our cab ride might have been 3000 CP at most. Instead, for those of you who don't instantaneously do FX, we paid approx. US$60.00 for our 5 minute cab ride. Life's lessons in a large South American city well learned! When we exited the cab I asked what she'd given him and when she told me we figured it out. The cabbie didn't so much as blink, saying simply "gracias". Indeed!! We did then have a very interesting ride in the funicular, 10 minutes to the top and this beautiful park that offers a 360 view of the city. Somewhat smoggy today as you will see when I get a picture posted but beautiful, warm, and offering the chance to watch families out for Saturday adventures. Adventurous it was when the funicular slipped its cable on the way down. We paused for enough minutes for it to be of concern, listening to the operators speaking very quickly in Spanish. We could actually see the cable slipped off 4 of the wheels behind us and just hoped it held for the ones on the downside. Since you are reading this, you can assume that we arrived safely, albeit, somewhat less relaxed than we started. At that point we found a beautiful store selling lapis lazuli jewelry which I am sure will surprise all of you :-) and after soothing our troubled psyches there with some shopping therapy we were ready to find a much talked about seafood restaurant at Mercado Centrale. It really does seem that Mercado Centrale's are the same all over the world with the most beautiful displays of fruits and veggies and great restaurants. Santiago's is no exception. We had a great lunch of king crab, shrimp and the Chilean specialty salad of tomato and onions. All very good for approx $25.00 for the two of us. We did find our hopon/hopoff bus and enjoyed riding the upper deck while listening to a well-articulated English guide. We were too pooped to do museums today and tomorrow being Sunday much is closed but we will check out some of the artisanal markets. I did try my first pisco sour tonight, the Chilean national drink, I'm told. Pisco is a brandy made from muscadet grapes and the drink is pisco, lemon juice and sugar. Really very lovely and refreshing. Monday we are doing an Andes & winery tour all day where we will go up into the mountains for the morning and in the afternoon tour the Santa Carolina winery. Right now we are heading out to Mephisto, a Latin American restaurant for dinner. We got an 8:00 reservation, the earliest we could get :-). Working our way up to the 10:00 slots in Buenos Aires. Talk to you all soon! xoxo

Testing, testing 1,2,3............let's see if we can make this picture upload work with the current posting.........and it will, of course, be of my favourite subject, Marshall Luca!! Just looked at the preview and I'm thinking it may have worked! Thanks, Greg!! Next stop Santiago, Chile....................sf

Oh, isn't procrastination grand?! While in Arizona no blog training got done as I was having issues getting wifi on my netbook. Now I am 3 sleeps from leaving for Chile and will just have to fly by the seat of my pants, so to speak. Maggie has been packed and organized for a week and I am scrambling, as usual, to the finish line to close my suitcase. Hopefully I will get some practice in the next couple of days in uploading pictures to this site. The text part is very easy but adding pictures is what will make the South American adventure more interesting for all of us..........take care and have a great day..........sf