Saturday, February 29, 2020 – San Antonio, Chile
This is the port for the capital of Chile Santiago and for the wine region and the seaside town of Valparaiso and Viña Del Mar. Most ships used to come in to Valparaiso as the entry to Santiago, however a few years ago there was a port strike in Valparaiso in which passengers from a Norwegian line boat found that they could not get on or off the boat and indeed that luggage was just being thrown into the ocean for those passengers disembarking or embarking. this together with a similar experience with a Viking ship made all cruise ships decide to find a hat a different port and San Antonio was very happy for the business offering berthing at a cheaper price and none of the problems. So now all ships go to what used to be just a container port and Valparaiso has been left out of the cruise ship business. Apparently the unions of longshoreman are very powerful and they wanted to demonstrate that power in Valparaiso. All that they achieved was the result that they no longer have that tourist business.
The ship docked port to the dock and town side and as it was a container port, we took the shuttle bus to the main passenger port building. Here we had to go through the x-ray machines particularly as they are very careful about importing anything that can affect their agricultural buisness. there were numerous, maybe half a dozen, SAG offices officers (Secretaria de Agriultura y Gadaneria) – Ministry of Agriculture and Livestock. We had been warned on the ship that we needed to not only carry a sworn affidavit that you were not ringing into the country any fruits vegetables or any other kind of foodstuff that might contain a bug that can affect their fruit, vegetable and wine crop, but also that we should not even attempt to take in any such produce into the Country. Apparently in the past, people have been fined or even sent to jail for trying to introduce produce into the country that might affect their agricultural production.
We soon found our private driver Bernardo (TransKartz – http://www.kartz.cl e-mail kartz@kartz.cl)and our guide Elena Angélica Dal Pozo cell – +569-7421-9052 e-mail – guiandiXChile@gmail.com – and we were off on our excursion for the day.
We indicated that as we had lived in Santiago, Anne or visited Santiago many times on buisness, Roger, we did not want to go to Santiago at all today, but wanted to visit Viña Del Mar and Valparaiso. This initially caused some confusion, but guide and river soon rallied and we were off to Viña Del Mar. We were asked if we wanted to visit a vineyard. Since Chilean wine is excellent, we sped off to Casas Del Bosque in the Valley (and city) of Casablanca. Since we arrived soon after 9AM and no reservation, we were told that they really don’t open until 10-10:30 and that they were very busy with groups until after 2pm. We agreed to return about 3pm.
So to Viña. A really nice seaside town of 300K people who live there permanently and swells to 1MM with Week-Enders and during Summer. Being Saturday at the end of Summer – Children end their summer holiday in a week or so, the place was crowded. Many on the beach but no-one in the water as the Humboldt Current starting in Antarctica brings cold water all the way along the 4,000 miles of coastline (8,000 miles of one includes all the little islands in Chilean Patagonia / Tierra del Fuego). Thus going into the water requires wet-suits and not a lot of people do that.
Our first stop was at the very interesting (Francisco Fonck) Anthropology museum. One whole room was devoted to the Rapa Nui – people and history of Easter Island that belongs to Chile. One of the Maoi (2.8 meters high) from the Ahu one Maliki group was transplanted to the area in 1951 and was visible at the entrance to the museum. The other rooms had pottery and may other elements from the various other cultures throughout Chile. The Mapuches (previously Reche) were predominant in this area. The upper floor is dedicated to the many animals and insects from the area. Even shrunken heads were on display!
From the museum we visited the Virgen del Carmen (Virgin of Carmen) with it’s ornate altar and stained glass windows. Two side altars – one to the little child of Parma, the other to Theresa of the Andes.
Viña Del Mar has numerous high-rise apartment buildings and many tiered high rises for the week-end “residents” and locals along the extensive coast. We passed the Las Salinas beach, Renaca town, Renaca Beach, Campo Dunbar before our next stop. This was at the Santuario de la Naturaleza Roca Oceánica (The Ocean Rock Sanctuary) an 8,000 Square Meter promontory of large black and white rocks with coves and an abundance of flora and sea birds and other sea life. A nice park and walkway afforded terrific views or the beaches and the spectacular rocky promontory.
We travelled on to Valparaiso and the main square dedicated to Arturo Pratt – a local hero, and the martyred heroes – May 21, 1879. There were a lot of important colonial buildings all around the square open to the sea. The central Fireman’s offices, the Chilean Navy, Ministry of Art and Culture, Law courts and in the center an open market. The side streets were filled with graffiti-ridden, otherwise beautiful Spanish Colonial buildings. Near the Court of Appeals building we were ushered into a narrow passageway that leads to a funicular – Ascendor El Peral established in 1902, which takes 10 people from the lower to the upper part of town in 5 minutes and must be at a 70 degree angle. These two small red and green with whit stripe wooden boxes go back up and down all day, with merchants having the right of way. The cost CLP 100 (US$0.13). There was a great view of the City of Valparaiso and the bay from there.
A large fancy home, now the Baburizza Fine Arts museum (www.museobaburizza.cl) is the first building you see on an attractive square.
We continued our drive up the hill, and just past the Nobel laureate- Pablo Neruda’s home to our lunch place overlooking the town and bay. We had talked about the specialty, in this part of Chile and enjoyed our Machas a la Parmesana – razor neck clams in a Parmesan sauce. Pisco sour and good Chilean wine washed down the very good meal. The restaurant – California Orange Bar – on the corner of Florida and Condor streets is way off the better track but known by local tourists. I’m sure no-one from our ship was there!!! Next to the restsurant was a public lookout point and a square with life sized sculptures of the two Nobel laureates Pablo Neruda standing, chatting with another man seated in a bench and Gabriela Mistral looking off into the distance.
A brief stop just up the road at “La Sebastiana” – Pablo Neruda’s turquoise and orange painted home with a stunning view and now a museum. Unfortunately we only had time to take a few pictures and not enter, before we had to be on our way.
It was now late and we were some 1 hour or so away from the ship and we had agreed to stop at the winery before our departure. We arrived at the Viña Casas del Bosque. When we went to the counter indicating that we wanted the tour and tasting and had been here earlier. However the girl behind the counter was not helpful. Eventually the “boss lady” came by and a private quick tour of the vineyard, distillation area and Barrel storage rooms were done followed by a quick 4 wine (2 white, 2 red) tasting. We liked one of them so Anne went to buy some while Roger finished off seven of the eight glasses. One interesting and great lesson we learned wax to plant roses, preferably white, next to the vines. The reason did this is to detect bugs that affect the roses, before they attack the vines and gnus have time to take action.
Feeling no pain, we drove the rest of the way and made it in good time (meaning that there was at least one coach that we passed on the final stretch, and thus were not the last to arrive.
We enjoyed watching the sail-away before going to see the show – The violinist – Craig Halliday.
Roger & Anne Travels 