Pinot Noir and Pablo Neruda

Posted on August 27, 2014 by kierstenmurnane

This past weekend we took a week off from Skiing to drive out to the coast to make the most of the Friday holiday. It is harder in Chile to do spur-of-the-moment trips because the most popular destinations are booked far in advance, which poses a challenge for non-planners like us. So we decided to take a chance on an off-season trip to the coast.

Agarrobo, a small beach town south of Valparaiso, is most famous for the world’s largest outdoor swimming pool within the sprawling condominium development called San Alfonso del Mar Resort. We obviously did not chose Agarrobo for that reason. Instead, we thought it would be a great location close to the Casablanca Wine Valley as well as Isla Negra, another small coastal town known for Poet Pablo Neruda’s seaside home.

La Mirage Hotel

We found a small hotel, La Mirage Parador, located in-between Agarrobo and the Casablanca Valley off a small winding road. The hotel was quaint and intimate with just five rooms and each one faced an outdoor courtyard full of flowers and plants. It had a beautiful back patio where they served a lovely breakfast every morning. We were very pleasantly surprised. Hotels in Chile are typically very expensive and lacking. The only drawback here was that it still is winter and at night the rooms were very cold.

Breakfast at La Mirage

Thankfully the weather during the day was beautiful and we were excited to explore the Wineries. Wine tourism here is still fairly underdeveloped in many areas. Visiting the Casablanca Wine Valley is not like visiting Napa. Our hotel had no information on the wineries less than 20 minutes away. You need to make appointments in advance to visit a winery (and some don’t answer the phone when you call) and many of the smaller wineries are not even on the maps. There is a central area along Route 68 where the heart of the tourism is but it still has a way to go.

As far as I can tell, you can only visit about 6 wineries in Casablanca. Some are worth a visit but others are mass producers who won’t prove very interesting for those who have visited other wine regions. We do have a great restaurant we love called Casa Botha where the owner, David and his wife Carmen create a wonderful respite with thoughtfully prepared italian food with locally sourced Chilean ingredients. My favorite part of visiting David is that he gets all the good boutique wines from the Casablanca Valley – the ones you can’t find anywhere else. In fact, on most occasions, we find a winemaker at the restaurant, eager to share their passion about making wine on a small scale.

Bar at Casa Botha with Wine from Casablanca Valley

Casa Botha Wine Options

After a day in Casablanca we headed to Isla Negra for a tour of the house of the the nobel-prize winning poet Pablo Neruda. I wasn’t familiar with Pablo Neruda before coming to Chile but he really is a remarkable figure. He is so essential to the history of this country as went on to have a long diplomatic career. Neruda was a well-known communist and had to flee the country at one point with his family. In fact, many speculated that his death was a conspiracy by the Pinochet regime given that he died just days after the military coup. The theory gained so much traction that his body was exhumed and toxicology tests were conducted. The results confirmed that Neruda’s death was from natural causes but the stories still persist. Needless to say he is a very interesting character.

Neruda has three houses in Chile. One in Santiago, one in Valparaiso and a third in Isla Negra. While all three are worth a visit, the Isla Negra house is perhaps the most beautiful because it sits on a cliff overlooking the ocean. It also displays many of his famous collections including his seashell collection.

We learned there would be a two-hour wait to enter so we took some time to explore the vendors situated on the path to the house. We also found a marvelous beach cove with tons of rocks to climb. The kids might have liked this as much as the museum.

Jewelry Seller outside Pablo Nerudas House

Jewelry Vendor Outside Pablo Neruda’s House

When it came time for the tour, we all decided to take the spanish tour (except Jack who got his headset programmed for English). Just more than two years since arriving in Chile, Madie is now part of the National program at her school which means she no longer takes Spanish as a second language. John and I are relentless at efforts and finally gaining some comfort. All that said, the three of us had a hard time understanding the tour. I finally cheated and borrowed Jack’s headset for one of the rooms.

We called our last-minute getaway a great success. Chile is one of the most geographically beautiful places I have ever been. The fact that we can ski in the Andes just an hour from our house and the next weekend be at the beach in 90 minutes -with a visit to a wine region in-between – really sort of lovely.

La Boca!

Posted on February 1, 2013 by jackmurnane

On our summer vacation, we went to Argentina. While we were in Argentina we heard about the Boca Juniors playing River Plate. It was a soccer game.

CABJ stands for Club Atlético Boca Juniors. It is a soccer team in Buenos Aires that plays in a neighborhood called La Boca. It is one of the best teams in the world. They have won the Argentina championships 25 times and have won 18 titles outside of Argentina (tied for most with A.C. Milan).

Boca Juniors has a big rivalry with River Plate. Our tour guide in Buenos Aires told us a great story about how the rivalry started. It started when Boca Juniors and River Plate both wanted the stadium in La Boca. So they decided to play a game … and said that the winner gets to stay and the loser has to go. Boca Juniors beat River Plate (she said 3-0) and River Plate moved to the North of Buenos Aires and built their own stadium.

Boca Juniors couldn’t decide what their colors should be. They were fighting and fighting. I want red. I want blue. Finally, they said the first boat that comes, the colors on the boats flag will become our colors. The next morning, a boat came in and the colors were blue and yellow because the boat was from Sweden. So their colors are now yellow and blue like you see in my shirt.

This is a photo of Boca Juniors fans watching a game. I think this is how they celebrate when they score a goal.

Here is a picture I took of their stadium in La Boca.

Vacationing in the Rainforest

Posted on January 19, 2013 by madiemurnane

As odd as it sounds, we are in summer vacation now. Our summer vacation goes from December to February. We took a family trip to Iguazu Falls, Argentina and Buenos Aires.

Jack said that he thought Iguazu would have a lot of animals because the name, “Igua- zoo.” Jack and I think that is funny.

We left early in the morning on New Years Day to go to the airport (I had wanted to stay up until midnight on New Years Eve, but if you are going to wake up at 5:00 am that is not such a good idea). We had to make a connection in Buenos Aires. On the flight there, Mom was taking a nap and I was reading a book when an announcement came – first in Spanish – which I didn’t understand a single word of – and then in English, “Ladies and Gentleman, we will now be spraying the cabin with an insecticide. Please remain calm, this will not effect your health.” I whimpered. I could tell mom had just barely woken up. Then the flight attendant came through the aisle with a big can spraying as she walked.

Once we landed in Iguazu, mom said, “this airport might compete with Calama.” It was just as tiny as the little airport we landed in at the Atacama Desert. We got a cab to take us to our hotel which was the only hotel inside the National Park. We saw a sign that said something like, “animal crossing” and had a picture of some strange animal we had never seen or heard of before. We were truly in the rainforest.

While we were checking in to our hotel, The Sheraton Iguazu, through the windows we could see a beautiful big waterfall. But it wasn’t just one waterfall, there were like five or six separate waterfalls, some were huge and some were fairly small. The waterfalls are basically a connection between three countries: Brazil, Argentina and Paraguay. The Iguazu River separates the two countries, Brazil and Argentina. Apparently, when Eleanor Roosevelt saw the falls, she exclaimed, “Poor Niagara” because it was so breathtakingly beautiful. It is one of the seven natural wonders of South America.

As we were checking in to the hotel, we saw another sign which said, “do not feed the monkeys” in big white print. I thought to myself, “I hope we see some monkeys.” We went up to our room and mom said excitedly, “Madie, Jack, come here.” We went out to the balcony where she was standing and saw that there were monkeys climbing all over the roofs and balconies of the hotel. One pooped on our porch.

The next day we began walking through the park. We saw the little animals from the sign, they are called Coatis, and a Toucan.

Isn’t he cute!

One of the most recommended things was a boat ride to the waterfalls. We decided it would be the first thing we would do. So we got on a truck that took us through the jungle and down to the river.

Our guide on the Jeep.

We have arrived at the river.

When we got to the river, we saw lots of butterflies. They seemed to really like it near the water. There were tons of them where we were getting our life jackets on. It was like one of those butterfly pavilions you see at the museum or the zoo but it was their natural habitat. One of the butterflies landed on our field guide trying to find himself.

We had pictured getting on a boat, going near the waterfalls, and getting a little damp from the mist. We actually ended up getting absolutely soaked. The rocks that the waterfalls were hitting sent a lot more than just mist our way. I felt like a little ant in a thunderstorm.

Soaked!

Just a LITTLE wet from our boat trip to the falls.

While walking back to our hotel, we got to explore the different waterfalls and parts of the jungle. The size of the park is nearly 68,000 hectares. That’s really big. As big as six Disney Worlds including all the parks, water parks, hotels, golf courses and everything. And that is only the Argentina side, the Brazil Parque Nacional do Iguacu is another 185,000 hectares, or 20 Disney Worlds.

At the waterfall chico, we saw this little guy. He is a Golden Tegu Lizard. The ground in one part of the area was crawling with ants. The lizard apparently really liked to eat ants. He would go into the ant nest, eat a couple, they would climb on him and begin to bite him, he would fling the dirt in the air causing more ants to climb on him and bite him, rub his body on the leaves and bark as he squirmed away from the ant nest, and then he would go back in for more! He did this many times until he got bored of getting bitten by the ants.

Next, we saw a tree swaying back and forth. We quickly realized that it had a monkey on top of it. Dad joked that there were probably five or six coming up behind us because you can’t really find monkeys alone. Sure enough, we continued walking down the path and we came upon five or six monkeys. One of which had a baby on his back.

The next day we went to the Brazil side of Iguazu park, Foz de Iguazu. Mom and dad got to do a ropes course. It looked really fun but Jack and I were too short to do it. We did get to do a few things in the beginning and the zip line at the end.

Mom and Dad on the ropes course.

We also got to do this activity where you climbed up a big pole and jumped off the top (you were connected to something of course). Dad thinks it was 50 feet tall. Imagine climbing up to a four story building that was as round as a log that shook when you stood on it. You were supposed to try and grab the bar but Jack and I were way too short. It was fun anyway.

Also recommended for the Brazil side of the park was the bird Sanctuary. It was really interesting. It had a bunch of different types of birds reptiles and butterflies. In one of the enclosures that you could walk through there was a toucan sitting on a railing. Next to it was me looking at it, behind me was a girl who looked about my age, and behind her was a little boy. The toucan immediately began to hop in our direction. I quickly moved out of the way, as did the girl but the little boy wasn’t paying attention. The big old toucan pecked him on the forehead. He cried but he was ok. I’m glad it wasn’t me.

My friend the toucan.

The last day we spent in Iguazu we did the canopy trail. About half way through, after seeing birds and a little lizard, we saw the black vultures. We had seen them before circling the falls to find the fish and birds and other creatures that had gone over the falls, but never as close as we saw them that day.

The Plush Crested Jay

We took a canoe down the Iguazu River. The ride started up near the Devils Throat. One of the things dad said he really wanted to see before we left was a toucan flying. The rest of us had already seen one. On the canoe ride we saw a toucan and just before we floated away, the toucan flew. Dad was glad that he got to see it.

There was a little butterfly that kept following us around. I think he liked us.

I am helping the butterfly crawl on Jack’s finger

I think this was my favorite trip ever. It was really different from other trips and it had lots of animals that I had fun learning about. We had a field guide and checked off all the animals as we saw them. By the end, most of the animals in the book had been checked off. It felt good to know we saw almost the whole jungle.

The Atacama Desert

Posted on November 23, 2012 by madiemurnane

Family at Salt Flats

Instead of Trick-or-Treating this Halloween we took a family vacation to the Atacama Desert in Northern Chile. It is said to be the driest place in the world. Our hotel, Explora Atacama, offered many different hikes, horseback rides, bike rides, etc.

When we arrived at the Calama domestic airport, instead of going out through the jetway, the opened the stairs off the plane. We had truly just landed in the middle of the desert. The Santiago airport is rather impressive compared to the one in Calama. I can’t imagine having the job to advertise for the Calama airport, “Welcome to the Calama not-so-international-airport, where you can fly to places like Santiago, Santiago, and Santiago.” Really. I looked at the departure board and there were no flights to anywhere but Santiago.

We got in a van with a Brazilian couple speaking Portugese and drove to our hotel which took about an hour. My dad tried to do a call on the trip to the hotel and got disconnected twelve times in seven minutes. There was obviously no cell reception in the desert. Looking out the window, my mom said, “those mountains look like a bunch of volcanoes.” We later found out that those mountains were a chain of volcanoes, and a few of them were active.(yikes!)

Once we got to the hotel, we departed on our first excursion. The van took us to a small town. We noticed that the roofs were only sticks and dried grass. I guess it is because they don’t get any rain there so they don’t need a roof to keep the rain out. Our guide said he wanted to show us some llamas. He led us to a small door in the wall. We opened the door and there were a few people standing with three llamas. The baby one liked me.:)

Llamas in the small town on the way to the Salt Flats

Rocks? Sand? Nope! Actually, these rock-ish things are clumps of salt.

We got back in the van and the guide took us to the Salt Flats. At first I thought it was a bunch of rocks. I asked the guide why they were so weirdly shaped. He explained that because the salt flats were so old the salt had formed itself in big shapes. The salt flats, the largest in Chile, are home to the Las Flamencos National Reserve and hundreds of Flamingos.

The Gray Flamingo (a la izquierda) is a Baby.(if you don’t know what “a la izquierda” means, look it up.)

Our Guide Showing us the Salt Formations

The Sunset’s reflection on the mountains Was Beautiful

The next morning we set off on our second excursion to the Valle de Muerte. Our guide said they called it the Valley of Death by accident. The Frenchman who named it had meant to call it “Mars” after the planet but his accent on the Spanish was misunderstood and therefore “Muerte.” This was my favorite excursion. First we hiked up for about an hour. My mom kept telling us to stay to the right of her because on the left was a giant cliff.

We got up to the top and the guide informed us that we were going to go down. I wasn’t sure if he meant we were going to walk down the sand dune or if he meant that we had to hike all the way back. Then he took off running down the sand dune.

Ready…..Set………

Go!

Our guide and me.

Running in the sand dunes was hard because of the elevation. Atacama is at 7500 feet high which is even higher than Lake Tahoe where my grandparents live.

Start of the Hike

In the afternoon, we did the Cactus hike. It was a very different hike from any of the other hikes. There were multiple times where we had to cross the river. We also climbed over many rocks.

We found a lizard! I like Lizards!

He is Blurry Here, But Isn’t He Cute!

We walked into a canyon and followed the river for about two hours.

Then we began to climb up out of the canyon. Jack got ahead of most of the group on this hike. He did really well.

Hiking Out of the Canyon

Jack and our guide leading the pack on the hike

The next day was the official “Madie day” of the trip even though it was my dad’s birthday. In the morning we went horseback riding.

Getting Fit for my Helmet

Mom and Jack had gone back to the stables because Jack could barely breathe (he is allergic to horses). After a while of walking our guide explained to Dad and I how we could get our horses to trot. All we had to do is bounce up and down on our horses, giving it a little bit of a beat to trot to. It was really fun.

The next excursion we did was a mountain bike ride to a salty lake similar to the Dead Sea. We could float in the water when we got there. When we were deciding which excursion to do, and they suggested this one, we actually said that Jack wasn’t the strongest bike rider but they said he’d have no problem with it. When we were getting ready to start biking the guide admitted that he didn’t have a bike small enough to fit Jack. Jack ended up having to ride in the van. When we began to ride, mom asked the guide how many kids did this excursion. “Not very many” he replied. We had a feeling this was not going to be an easy bike ride.

The ride was 18 kilometers. We had no idea it would be that long. It was really, really hard. By the time we got to the salt lake, I was absolutely ready to pass out pooped. But the swimming was fun, even though the salt really burned our sunburns.

The last excursion we did was probably the prettiest. First we walked across a field of salt – very different from our first experience with salt flats.

When we reached the bottom of the canyon, the salt began to look less like salt and more like frosting on a cake or snow. Our guide said we had to be very careful not to damage any of the salt so that the next people who came and did the hike could experience it like we did.

Okay, so sure I’m a little disappointed that we didn’t get to celebrate halloween, but the desert was even better!

Bohemian Lemonade?

Posted on August 7, 2012 by kierstenmurnane

We went downtown to Barrio Bellavista to have lunch on Sunday. Barrio Bellevista is a wonderful Bohemian neighborhood with lots of restaurants, shops and seems to always be a buzz with people. The energy comes from a number of colleges around the area creating an artistic and intellectual energy. The neighborhood has demonstrated this character since poet Pablo Neruda was a student and his house is a famous landmark in the area. I also understand this is one of the fun areas to go out at night if you are still young 🙂

A smaller enclave of Barrio Bellavista is Patio Bellavista which is a more touristy group of shops and restaurants. In fact, like many “bohemian” areas in big cities, Patio Bellavista seems to cross over into the more unauthentic tourist trap, but as tourists, we really love it.

Madie in the central square at Patio Bellavista

The tourist factor has probably also lead to an increase in security in the area. Our friends have warned me that I need to always be careful with my purse. While I’m always careful, I was surprised to see how far they take it at Patio Bellavista. I first thought these giant lanyards might be for college kids to carry an oversized cocktail around their neck. I learned that they are actually used to strap your purse around the table, preventing a thief from running away with it.

Straps provided at restaurants at Patio Bellavista to secure your handbag to the table.

As for dining out, We continue to struggle with translating an average menu to figure out what the kids will eat. Everything is just a bit different, no matter how similar if appears to be at first glance. Our latest example of this was our order of lemonade by Jack. We were so pleased when the waiter acknowledged that they had lemonade…until we received it.

Turns out what we ordered translated to a shot glass full of lemon juice and two packets of sugar. We all had a great laugh! And, in the spirit of “going with it” we asked for a glass of ice and managed to create our own lemonade.

Lemonade Santiago-style

Murnanes in Santiago

Our Adventures in South America

Category Archives: Places to Explore