Central Chile: wine, timber, lakes & volcanoes

With our long and oddly shaped recumbent bikes, we knew that boxing the bikes for plane flights would involve some customization, so we got three bicycle boxes from two different bike shops and went to work frankensteining them back into two. What we failed to do was design our new boxes to meet the airline's maximum baggage size requirement of 130 cm (L+W+H). Had we focused on this detail, we could have made it work, but instead our boxes measured a little over 140 cm. We figured this out as we were finishing packing them up. Since they were so close to the prescribed size, we decided to go to the airport early and seek the mercy of the airline staff - it didn't work. They absolutely couldn't take oversized packages, and told us that we'd have to take the boxes to airline cargo for shipping. They implied that this was common and straightforward. It isn't, and it wasn't. Thus began an 8-hour odyssey of taxi rides, stranger's kindness, shady middlemen, multiple notaries, and ultimately, circumstance-induced blind faith. Thank goodness our flight wasn't until 10 pm! We climbed onto the plane not knowing for sure if our bikes would even be allowed to leave the country. We arrived at our guesthouse near the Santiago airport around 4 am, and settled in to wait, which we did for 3 days as the complicated and cryptic process of "importing" our bicycles from Peru to Chile took place. It finally did, and we spent an entire morning completing the customs paperwork and retrieving our bikes. Now our adventures in Chile could really begin!

While in Santiago, we met our friends Jan & Rick again at the end of their trip for an afternoon in Barrio Brasil, with its funky murals and Chile's Museum of Memory and Human Rights – dedicated to documenting the extraordinary atrocities of the US-backed Augusto Pinochet regime from 1973 to 1998 and Chile's path out of dictatorship. We continue to be amazed by the recent, tragic pasts of each of the South American countries we visit, and learning a bit about how each country is making their way forward. Chile's dark period was longer than many, but also finished longer ago (in 1998), which has allowed it more time to get back on its feet. You can see this in the level of infrastructure, development, adherence to the rule of law and sizeable middle class – all are more robust than the other countries we've visited thus far.

Leaving Santiago was when we really got to see how different the City's bicycle infrastructure is compared to the other South American countries we've visited. We were able to ride on dedicated bike paths out of the city for over 25 kms, where we then found that the towns in the country also had dedicated bike paths stretching throughout the region. We were ecstatic, and envious of this infrastructure that the United States has yet to invest in.

Andrés' family owns a winery in the region, Viña Pirazzoli, near the town of Lontué, which is small and nondescript, except for all of the large wineries that surround it, including one of the production centers for Concha y Toro, the largest wine producer in Latin America (and a common sight on store shelves in the USA). We went to Viña Pirazzoli and stayed for two days, hosted by Adriana, the family's longtime caretaker for the vineyard. The extensive grounds include many varieties of grapes as well as kiwis, and industrial-scale bee pollination and flood irrigation. We were treated to a private tour of the winery by Rosa María, the estate's winemaker of over 20 years, and her enthusiastic assistant, Jorge. Compared to the small wineries we're used to touring in Oregon, Viña Pirazzoli is huge. Their operation provides grapes and wine to many of the large Chilean wineries (including Concha y Toro), wineries in China (a large and growing market), as well as for their own, private-label wines – which, by the way, are delicious! We even got to taste some of the blends that Rosa María and Jorge are making right now - great fun! Thank you, Andrés, the Pirazzoli family, Adriana, Rosa María and Jorge for giving us an extra special, personal connection to Chile's wine region!

In Talca we took the first of what we hope will be many significant hikes in the southern Andes. We took the public bus to the Reserva Nacional Altos de Lircay and hiked the Enladrillado ("brick pavers") trail. We raced to complete the 25 km (15.5 mile) round-trip hike before the last bus of the day. The destination is a remarkably level plateau formed by the tops of a vast number of huge basalt columns -- hence the "brick paver" name – with spectacular views of peaks and glacial valleys. We also saw a bounty of lizards, interesting plants and flowers in bloom, and even a fox, which we snuck up on as it was busy spying on a couple ahead of us on the trail.

Chilean flags commonly fly outside houses, businesses, industries and country "estancias", displaying a genuine sense of national pride that we haven't seen before.

All properties in Chile seem to have fences, and for the first time on our trip, we found dogs contained behind those fences. Wow. They still bark at us like crazy, but now at a safe distance. Where they aren't fenced, but still "belong" to a house, we find they have a different approach to guarding their territory – they now focus on protecting their driveway (which we pass quite quickly), not their whole property line. In fact, some dogs we catch outside their fences actually run for the driveway, duck into the property, then proceed to bark at us making sure we don't come in. We can't really describe how big and welcome this change is to us, but a quick review of our "Dogs chasing Brockfolk on Bikes" video from our last blog might help you understand. Given that many dogs are “part of the family” in Chile, we are perplexed by the number of feral dogs here. The feral dogs we’ve met throughout South America are quiet and deferential, but here they are very trusting and friendly to humans. To our eyes, feral dogs seem to have a place in Chilean society that resembles that of cows in India (which we observed during our Asia cycle tour in 2001-2002) – they are tolerated but neglected. Unclaimed dogs in Chile seem to have incredible license to wander and sleep where they want, including walking into restaurants and curling up on sidewalks without getting chased away.

Elaborate roadside memorials pay homage to the deceased person's particular livelihood and/or passions. We found many of these to be incredibly thoughtful, detailed and intricate, making for artistic roadside surprises for us.

In addition, we also found multiple memorials made with the recurring theme of stacks of plastic water bottles...?? We asked Andrés, and learned of the tragic legend of "Difunta Correa", a woman in the 1800s who is said to have died of thirst while still nursing her infant son, who survived. She clearly has a large number of devoted followers in Chile and Argentina.

After our fraught love-hate relationship with food in Peru, we are happy to report that the food in Chile has been consistently good. Even in small towns we can enjoy fresh empanadas, chewing carefully until after the filling’s lone olive with a pit has been discovered. In cities we find a pleasing variety of restaurant choices (interestingly, the most highly recommended are usually Peruvian). The meat is expertly cooked to order, and interesting vegetable offerings exist, including salads. As far as we know, Chile has ensured that clean drinking water exists throughout the country, even in rural areas. We rejoice in being able to eat salads again. Strangely (to us), the salad ingredients arrive separated on the plate, without dressing. Olive oil, vinegar (or fresh lemon) and salt (but not pepper) are served on the side. You then "get to" cut the vegetables to the size you like, then dress and toss your own salad. It's a bit odd, but we're super happy to be able to consistently get some vegetables into our mostly restaurant-food diet!

Bus stop shelters are common and regional. It seems like a little thing, but after 5 months and almost 4,000 kms, we're amazed with Chile's commitment to roadside shelters, and have enjoyed seeing how their styles, materials, level of finish and decorations change along our path.

We also found that bus shelters were a common place to find political graffiti. As we passed through one region, we found recurring messages of protest against the Coexca Corporation, a large pork producer in South America.

We've also found that life in Chile bears more similarities to life in the United States than any other Latin American country we've been to. We see industrial farming and shrink-wrapped hay bales, cookie-cutter subdivisions on the edges of communities, processed lunch meat, drivers respecting pedestrians in crosswalks, fresh-squeezed fruit juices being a luxury rather than a staple, and solar panel street lights and solar "farms" in the countryside. All this feels oddly familiar as we explore the country.

Santiago is at a similar latitude to San Francisco, so as we've worked our way south from there, we've ridden into more and more familiar landscape and climate. We're seeing a "Pacific Southwest" that is similar in many ways to our home territory of the Pacific Northwest. Rolling countryside next to foothills accented by snow-capped volcanoes, wine country interspersed with large-scale agriculture, abundant water (at least in the late springtime) and abundant greenery all stand in stark contrast to Peru's arid mountains and desert coast.

Our sense of familiarity increased even more as wine country transitioned to timber country (as it does in Oregon) and we started riding through second-growth forests and clearcuts with many family-scale timber operations on the roadside that are resupplied with new raw timber from a constant stream of long timber trucks that flew by us on the roads.

In Concepción, we took a break day to spend the morning visiting the University's art museum's special exhibit on Chilean artist Nemiso Antúnez and an amazing mural by Jorge González Camerena entitled "Presencia de América Latina", full of pre-Colombian mythology and South American imagery. Fantastic!

This same trip included a visit to the town's beautiful and extensive Parque Isidora Cousiño which, in the 1800s, was part of the private estate of the Cousiño family that owned the mine. Here we enjoyed Chile's iconic drink (snack), "Mote con Huesillo”, a sweet drink full of husked wheat kernels and a whole reconstituted dehydrated peach, complete with the pit.

Though it's rough around the edges, we really liked Puerto Montt. It has a great mix of funky, colorful houses, new urban parks, German-influenced architecture/food/beer and an energetic fish market that has clearly made the transition to tourism.

Riding north from Puerto Montt we got a brief, 3-day taste of Chile's "Lake District" before heading south to Patagonia. The ride was dominated by the iconic Volcán Osorno, which we rode around for the whole three days. We again enjoyed Chile's commitment to bike infrastructure as we traversed the area, moving from bike path to bike path surrounding the lakes. Along the roadside we found numerous wooden churches, in much better repair than those we saw on Chiloé. We also found many chalet-like buildings, with many selling kuchen and strudel, more evidence of the distinct German influence in this area (and a great reason to stop for an afternoon break!)