More Wine

        Em and her parents flew into Santiago where D was waiting for them with Flavio's (his dad's) car. Soon after we headed south in a hurry, swooshing down the Chilean valley between the two mountain ranges, getting to Santa Cruz in 2 hours. We arrived to a really nice colonial looking hotel where we had some lunch and then went to rest. At night we had a nice dinner and wine at the same restaurant in the hotel and went to sleep early. You might be wondering why we did not leave the hotel premises and the answer is because it was freezing cold. It was nice to be able to stay inside.        The next morning we left early for our first winery, MontGras,  where we took an awesome tour of the facilities, seeing pretty much the whole process of winemaking up to the labeling. They gave us hardhats and actually let us come in to the factory part which was something none of us had experienced before. It was so interesting and cool.  Then our guide gave us some really good wine and we were off to the next winery, Montes where we had a more outdorsy tour of the vinyard rather than the facilities. We were treated with a nice view of the valley, and amazingly, with really good wine. After that we were off to the shore to have some lunch by the sea.
        Due to the Chilean geography driving to the shore is always a treat, since there is a coastal mountain range (a short one compared to the Andes) between the valley and the sea. Thus, once you climb to get over the mountains, it becomes more of a pine forest, and then when you get past that the sea opens up in front of you. We stopped in a town called Pichilemu, which is supposed to be a surfers haven, but not in the winter. We had some really good fish with some great scenery. At Pichilemu we also bought some cheese and fruits, with which we made a nice cheese and wine dinner by the fire in our hotel room (yes our hotel room had a fireplace - baller!) and some good old talk before calling it a night in this excursion to the south of Chile.     On Friday we left for Santiago early in the morning to arrive for lunch, and that we did, that we did.