Santiago - Not Chilly in Chile

We were up and going on good time and arrived at the airport ahead of schedule. I was glad we made it because the van we hired was not in peak condition. I think it should have been retired after 570,000 km. We sputtered, gasped and surged and never made it over 72 km/hour, but we made it in one piece nevertheless. 

We went through security and customs without any issues, so spent some time getting a iced chai latte at Starbucks and sitting on the comfy sofas with a glass of wine in one of the bars to work on the blog and photos. 

My stomach is acting up again, so more Imodium was required. I have it narrowed down to the following that I could be reacting to: some ingredient(s) that I have reintroduced to my diet, the new supplement(s), something I ate or drank during the trip, my cold that I may still be getting over or just being at the airport! Should be easy enough to figure out!

I had a nap on the flight until snack service. The bun with butter and cheese and some water made my stomach feel better, so I hoped that was a good sign of things to come for the rest of the day.

And it was....

Matisse was our driver to the hotel and Claudio our guide who was super helpful in resetting our itinerary for tomorrow to do the city tour in the morning instead of the afternoon and fixing our airport pickup time from 9am to 3pm for our evening flight.  

It was a short drive to our boutique hotel Altiplanico Bellas Artes located across from the fine arts museum. We checked in and dropped our bags off, then headed out for some lunch to another recommendation from Eater.com. 

We arrived at Chipe Libre - Republica Independiente del Pisco just in time. Carlos advised that they were closing in 15 min and that we should find another spot, he started directing us to another location, but noted that they were closing for siesta too. We asked if we could just come in for one drink and we would leave within 15 min, but he advised that we could not order just drinks due to the legal requirements of ordering food too. Bill had done his homework and advised that we would gladly oblicgate and order some octopus ceviche. At that point, he could not resist and allowed us to enter.

Shortly thereafter, they closed the metal security gate and we were locked inside. What a delightful turn of events! 

Bill and I were treated to the two best Pisco Sours ever (these were Chilean style) and the best octopus civeche ever (maybe the first, but it was amazing nonetheless). In true Canadian fashion, we gulped everything down before we were inevitably tossed from the obviously closed restaurant when Carlos stopped by to chat with us. 

He then assured us that we were more than welcome to stay as long as we liked and promptly encouraged us to order two more Piscos, this time from Peru, so we could compare and contrast the two different styles of Pisco. 

Carlos then spent a great deal of time educating us on the process of processing Pisco, the nuances of Chilean vs Peruvian Pisco, his travels (and ours) to different nations, and the many benefits of Chile in general. Needless to say, we are falling head over heels for Santiago already! 

So, after a respectable amount of time of imposing ourselves, we left the restaurant and wandered the area. We checked out a small area where independent artists have set up shop beside the restaurant and did some window shopping nearby.

Bill finally located a bank to get some local currency and then we stopped into a local wine shop for a couple of bottles of wine to take back to our room while we relax, catch up on posting photos, the blog and Facebook (aka give the people what they want!).

At 7:30 Joachim picked us up at our hotel with Mattisse and delivered us to the area of the city just West of downtown to a restaurant called Como Agua para Chocolate. Joachim delivered us into the very capable hands of Augusto, our waiter. 

We enjoyed our starters of Pisco Sours, fried shrimp and ceviche. The fish and steak were good, but does not compare to the amazing food we just experienced in Buenos Aires recently. The Carmenere wine was very good. Apparently it was a grape that originated in France for Bordeaux wines and is part of the Cabernet family, but was killed there by a crop disease. They thought the grape had died out, but years later it was realized that some families had brought the grape to Chile and it was thriving. 

We finished off the evening with some dessert and were taken by to the hotel by Matisse and Joachim.