Chile Mountains and Sea

 


I sit here writing this by candlelight as tChile has a complete power outage.  We were lucky enough to find a hostel, run by 3 wonderful ladies who had a matrimonial room available for cash.  We were trying to figure out what was happening as all the gas stations had major lineups, luckily we gassed up in a small town with no line.  Then we noticed no street light, most businesses without light and lineups at the supermarcados.  



Going back 2 days we left, Chillán and headed up the mountain to check out the volcano, last hike was the day before, and hot springs, we did not go in as they where 35 degrees.  We road a chairlift at a ski resort and was surprised to see sand, ash dunes at the top of the mountain.  Watched many Chillains mountain biking! On the way up we got caught in the ascension of Chillan bike race, 3 days, ending with the 75 km climb up the mountain.  Some of the cyclist where using interesting means to finish the race, holding onto a water bottle well the passengers car was going up hill, grabbing ahold of wheel wells of the car to make it up! Spent a restful night in a cozy chalet on the mountain after eating a traditional meal of Chilean meat (steak, sausage, pork and





chicken).









The next day we explored the Itata valley, where we spent a lovely time with Heinrich from Mannle wines.  He shared many different wines but the most unique was a field red blend, all the grapes grow and are harvested together, no formula just what the vines give!  We drove across the Rio Itata on a very old bridge, very impressive for its length.  Spent the night in Talca, a lively university tow 


 


 



Today we had a lovely time tasting wine at 2 vineyards, the first was Noble vineyards where they did a tasting for us in the garden.  Constanta, a girl doing her internship, joined us and we enjoyed 3 wines from the Maule valley.  Next we went to Miguel Torres where we tasted a Carigan and Carmenere.  We had an amazing lunch of seafood and the restaurant gave us an extra apply of mussels and potatoe salad.  Luckily as tonight we where not hungry and given the lineups, opted for a glass of vino in our room.  




Power is restored, having a relax day at the beach town





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