Homecoming

Ha, you thought I was going to tell you about our trip home.  I’ll get there, but not yet.  First, we have a whole day of touring before heading home.

Valparaiso

We were off the ship by 9am.  Our guide, Christian, was at the pier to meet us.  We had a full day of touring and were quite lucky as the weather was just gorgeous with a nice temperature and clear blue skies.  From the harbor, you can see the 45 hills that comprise this city.  The hills are alive (playing music) – with housing, wall-to-wall buildings with very little greenery.  From the distance, the density makes it look like the hillsides are carpeted with corrugated tin in varying colors and hues.  

The city was settled around 1836, but was occupied long before by the Spanish.  Many of the hills were originally segregated by different ethnic groups and today many maintain their original ethnic heritage.  The residential areas are being renovated; many of the homes were built using Oregon pine, which has been covered with tin to protect the wood.  The streets are paved with cobblestones.  The pine and stones were used as ballast for the many ships visiting the port in the 1800s.  There is no main square in this city as there are in most cities with a Spanish heritage because of the hills.  There are squares everywhere with trees, fountains, statues and playgrounds.  We visited many of them.

Where there are hills, there are funiculars; Valparaiso has 15 of them but only 5 are functional.  We rode on one that was over 100 years old!  You could see right through the slats on the bottom of the wooden floors.  I held my breath as this creaky and rusty conveyance took us up and down the hill.  While we were joy-riding, our guide stayed with the van to protect our luggage.  Yes, they have thieves here looking for unwary tourists.  I am not going to be a victim a second time!

The one picture I take away from my visit here is the color.  This is a city that loves color, the more intensely bright and garish, the better.  Murals are painted on any wall that is flat enough to accept paint.  There is graffiti everywhere, which is so sad to see.  The perps have no respect for the beautiful murals and put their gang signs on everything.  There is a purple house right next to an orange one, right next to a green one.

The roads are a warren of narrow, twisty and steep streets.  You could spend a lifetime walking the streets and never repeat your steps.  We spent an hour or so walking through some of the neighborhoods.  It is said that the women of Valparaiso have the best looking legs.  Yes, the roads are quite steep.  My knees can attest to that.

Vina del Mar

Our next stop was a tour of this beach resort area.  It is very dense with beautiful high rise condos and upscale shopping.  The beach and promenade were dazzling and we stopped for a stroll along the promenade, avoiding the sandy beach because we were trying to stay clean for our long flight home.

Emiliana

Over the hill and through the woods (taking liberties and singing again), we headed out to wine country in the Casablanca Valley to visit an organic winery.  This winery is famous in Chile because Prince Charles visited it, and it was the only winery he visited. The grounds were simple yet elegant.  There were alpacas, and guinea fowl were roaming around.  Why guinea fowl?  They eat the larvae of bugs that destroy the grapes, thus avoiding the need for pesticides.  We had a private tasting of four wines, one white and three red.  It was around 2pm and we had not eaten since 8am.  OMG, can you believe we have gone six whole hours without eating?  Anyway, a cute young lady poured each of us a full glass of each of the four wines and then sat with us and described them.  The first one, the white, was actually pretty nice.  The reds were, to me, yucky.  Michael liked them so I gave him all of mine.  Remember, this is on an empty stomach.  I think Michael drank the equivalent of a whole bottle. 

Los Hornitos Restaurant

On the way to lunch, we drove over a twisting mountain road.  Michael asked for the Aleve as he had a headache.  Humm, I wonder where he got that from?  By this time, it is 3:30pm.  They eat lunch very late in Chile and it is the big meal of the day.  They eat a light supper in the evening.  The restaurant has been in business for over 50 years and is located out in the boonies.  Christian’s mother used to eat here.  The waiters are actually huasos, or cowboys.  This place has character.  The floors, inside and outside on the patio, are dirt.  To clean them, they are sprayed with water and then raked.  We ate outside under the ceiling fans and enjoyed some good country food.  Michael had ribs, big and meaty; I had pastel de choco; and Christian had a thick portion of beef that was so tender he cut it with a fork.  The food was fabulous, but the best part was the Chilean bread -- Pan Amasado Empanada straight from the outdoor adobe ovens.  I have never eaten bread this good before.  I don’t even know how to describe it.  It is big, it is flattened, the crust was crunchy and the inside soft.  It was so good, I ordered two more to take on the plane.  I found a recipe for it on the internet, but I don’t think I could ever make it as I don’t have an adobe oven – for those that know me, I don’t like to cook at all, so what even made me think I could make this?  Any of my friends, the good cooks, want to try it?  I’ll send you the recipe.

Santiago Main Square

After lunch, it was back to Santiago to visit the Square of Arms and Metropolitan Cathedral of Santiago, where the first Chilean cardinal is buried.  By now it is quite warm out and I am desperately trying not to sweat.  I do not want to sit on a plane for 12 hours feeling sticky and needing a shower.  So I keep to the shade.  This is a very crowded and busy area, with shopping nearby.  Christian drops us off and I am very wary of the crowds.  I hug my travel bag tight to my body.  This is the first time I have to deal with my feelings from the robbery in Buenos Aires.  I do not like this.  I do not want to stay on the square.  We make our way into the cathedral and I have never seen any house of worship so large, so massive.  It is cool in here and we see priests taking confession out in the open.  When a priest is available, a red light goes on above the booth. 

Shopping Mall

We have some time to kill before we need to go to the airport.  My tote bag zipper broke so I thought I would like to buy a new one, so I suggested a shopping mall.  I like to go where the locals go; this way you can see how they really live.  This was an upscale, outdoor mall that had a grocery store.  Grocery stores are a good place to learn about a culture and the names of the products can be quite amusing.   I never did find a bag, but I worked up a good sweat.  I think the USA is obsessed with air-conditioning.  I was ready to find some.

Airport

The time had come to go to the airport.  We planned on changing clothes once we got there.  The departure lobby was mobbed, it was hot, and I am glad we got there early as the lines were pretty long.  We are flying LAN, the Chilean airline.  I have to say, we did a fabulous job of packing.  Each bag passed the weight test.  We were not able to upgrade to business class, so we get to go to the back – cramped, noisy, lousy food and no leg room. 

We get through security and had three hours to kill.  By this time, I am beyond caring about being hot and sweaty because there was nothing I could do about it as it was warm in the terminal.  So we walked around, sat, tried to find free internet, looked in the shops.  Boring.  Then I ran into some folks from the ship and we visited while they had dinner.  Neither Michael nor I were hungry at that point, but we did go in search of ice cream.  Now what airport doesn’t have ice cream?  The Santiago international terminal!  So we settled for a Starbucks drink that was sorta like a milkshake.  Bad move on my part.  Milk does a body good, but not mine.  I realized it too late after I drank 90% of it.  I was to pay for it later.  Let’s just say an airplane head is not a place you want to spend too much time in.

Things had gone along so well that there had to be at least one hitch.  Yep, our 11:45pm flight was delayed until 1:45am.  Now we got hungry.  I had my Pan Amasado Empanada to munch on.  Not quite as good as fresh from the oven, but good nevertheless.  We finally board the plane and settle back for the almost 12 hour flight.  I am juggling my items I plan to use during the flight when a flight attendant says something to me in Spanish.  “No hablo espanol” I replied.  Basically, she told me in broken English that I could not have my knitting because of the needles.  Holey Bat Man, you are not taking my knitting!  After some negotiation, she agreed if I put it away in the overhead bin and did not take it out during the flight I could keep it.  I have never had a problem before and I knit on the LAN flight from LA to Santiago.  I wish the damn airlines would be consistent.

The food was bad, the service was non-existent, and the a$$hole in the seat in front of me just jammed his seat back at ramming speed and knocked a glass of water all over me.  I yelled at him and Michael yelled at me to shut up.  I am thankful my iPad was not drowned.  We both took a sleep pill and hoped for the best.  Michael slept a good portion of the trip, albeit fitfully, and I dozed on and off for a couple of hours.  I lost my reading glasses, Michael knocked a glass of water all over his seat while on the floor looking for them.  He wound up sitting on a blanket.  We had seen all the movies on the trip down so there wasn’t much left to do except read.  We never did need to change into warmer clothes as the plane was much too warm.  Isn’t it fun to fly for hours and hours?  NOT  When you think you have done 8 hours, you find out you still have 8 more to go.  The time passes so slow.

We finally arrived in LA.  We cleared immigration and customs, collected our bags, hopped on the shuttle to the rental car lot and got ready to drive home.  Except it took forever to get the paperwork done for the rental car.  We finally got going, stopped for lunch at In-And-Out Burger (oh how we missed junk food) and arrived home in the desert around noon.  We were totally unpacked by 4pm.  Dragging fanny, we returned the rental car to Palm Springs Airport and then met friends for dinner.  Finally, we hit the bed and both of us were asleep by 9:30pm.  IT’S GOOD TO BE HOME AND SLEEP IN A BED THAT DOESN’T MOVE.