Apr Friday the 13th..and home

The Toronto-Calgary leg is not premium economy but at least it is just 2 seats. We snooze a bit more and in no time are at the gate in Calgary right on time. Fortunately Lloyd has come into the airport to meet our plane when he could not reach us - so we see his smiling face as soon as we emerge from the gate.

  There is not that much snow really...

  Next day, a mini blizzard is forecast, we are snowed in again with 4 new inches of the white stuff. Toronto and the east are hit with a far bigger ice storm, trees down, many planes cancelled. Dodged that bullet too. 

  My car won’t start so Ted’s first job is to find a new battery and install it. Fortunately his is driving well, for me to go to the live from the MET opera at Chinook Centre cinema Saturday morning. I’ve slept well Friday so I manage to stay awake through the 3.5 hour Luisa Miller opera.

  And now I am going down with the airport air cold! Sheesh.

Our contract with the snow removal company finishes Apr 15 so on Monday, it’s out with the shovel for Ted to get out of our driveway.

  Welcome back to Calgary spring! Hahaha

Apr 12 Santiago and home via Toronto

Why do we have to leave? The weather is perfect, we are completely at home in this city, and it’s gonna snow in Calgary again.

  Coincidentally, I receive an email from Alastair French who has found one of y letters from 1982 to his parents talking about the terrible winter in Calgary, minus 30 for 2 months and still snow. So it’s obviously not unusual...

  We don’t fly til later so it’s off to the classy Costanera Centre, huge shopping mall at the base of San-hattan’s tallest building. Lunch is a seafood crepe and last maracuya fruit frappe (passionfruit, ah!)

  Back to pack, we have acquired enough stuff for another case but amazingly, we get it all into two small cases, two carry ons, two backpacks and a couple of totes. Well done Ted!

  WE relax on the patio ti the taxi arrives at 4:30. WE are allowing plenty of time due to the baggage handling strike, but it doesn’t affect us and checkin and security, etc. are amazingly simple and we have lots of time to spare to read at the gate. The Latham checkin area is deserted, I guess it is domestic travel that has been affected. 

  Air Canada’s Dreamliner is almost full and we have comfortable double window/aisle seats for the 10+hour flight to Toronto. AC have changed our flight, however, from leaving at 7:10 to 8am. Just as well as we would not have made the 7:10. But I email Lloyd who is picking us up in Calgary from the cell phone waiting area.

  Slight glitch - I go to replace the  Chile SIM card with the Telus SIM card. It appears I have thrown away the Telus one and kept the Argentinian one. So no cell phone.

Apr 11 One last winery...Cousino Macun

There is one last winery, Cousio Macun, 3rd oldest in Chile, that we have not yet visited so we decide to take the metro and cab down there. We catch a tour in English and one last tasting. It’s a lovely old estate, now run by the 6th generation of same Italian owners. Part of it is now a historic monument but also an interesting museum of ancient wine making equipment. Also on our tour a nice young English couple touring around the world on a budget, Zoe and Sean. The 4 of us enjoy the interesting tour and tasting afterwards. Our great host/sommelier Giuseppi (Joe) adds a Syrah pour to the 4 nice wines. We then pay 10k (C$20) for ONE tasting of their awards winning Lot $160/bottle!) which is deemed pretty super by the 4 of us as we sip the red nectar.

  We stop off en route home at the nice tapas bar for gazpacho and a fine chorizo tortilla (niece Hannah has got us hooked on these.)

  I download a book from my local library. Doncha love this technological age. Reading for the long journey home tomorrow.

Apr 10 Still some shopping?

Despite his loathing of shopping, Ted opts to return to the art shop in Bellavista to buy the sweet little ceramic Indian child playing a flute. I like it too. The young lady watching the store then was almost in tears when we arrived the other day and after hugs and sympathetic sounds, calmed down. When we return, we are greeted like long lost relatives. She is happy with her sale. Another refugee from Venezuela making her way in Chile.

  WE are up and out early to catch the charging of the guard, with mounted guards, trumpets and the like. The web site says it happens every other day, even days in April. Not! It’s tomorrow! But we head down underground to a wonderful art museum with a nice collection of contemporary Hispanic art.

  There’s a media flurry outside one of the government offices, a strike of airline people is due to start today, not sure if that’s involved, but maybe it affects the usual schedule. Who knows?

  We enjoy a long walk back along the green park in th3e centre of the city along the river (stream really but flowing fast). 

  Back at our fav fish market resto Ricardos we have one last free pisco from them with the excellent corvina (sea bass) , salads and cheap but good white wine. 

  At our local metro station I go into the Paris department store and find another microfiber top, it will be a delight not to wear the one I have worn for a week now! Still cheaper than MEC prices at home. And now that I inspect the label it is “designed” in Chile, he has in China!

  We see there is a 6.2 earthquake today in La Serena - dodged that bullet by 13 days.

  Not hungry enough for another meal, we finish off Jamon Serrano, cheese, crackers, fresh figs, chocolate cookies, chocolate and some of the pisco, white wine and beer we have accumulated and must  dispose of before Friday! Hardly anyone else here ever uses the nice sitting areas in the garden patios. 

Tipping and Taxes

 Although tipping is regarded as an extra in most countries, it is not expected at all in much of Argentina. In Chile it’s a whole other story. Every restaurant automatically adds the 10% to your biIl and the waiter then looks you straight in the eye and says “propina?” (“Tip”) Woe unto he who says no, but you can in fact just pay the tip in cash and not put it on your credit card. Sometimes they requested that.

  At the hotel in the Colchagua Valley this week, we had a first experience when Ted was told on settling the bill that they suggested automatically adding a 10% tip. He was rather flabbergasted and simply agreed, as we had had exemplary service from all the staff there. When breakfasts are included, you have no way of knowing the cost of leaving a tip. But the whole bill??? Cheeky I say.

  Chilean currency is all in huge numbers but the easy way for us is to drop the last three zeros and double it, i.e. 25,000 is C$50. But most places charge in US dollars.

  There is a 19% tax on hotels and many services in Chile BUT if you are foreign and pay in US dollars, it is waived. Therefore every time we check into a hotel (and we have had 17 different beds on this trip!) they photocopy our passport, retain our passport numbers in a big register which we have to sign, and also copy our police immigration papers too. Very thorough thee Chilean taxmen.Tipping and TAxes

Earthquakes

We are in the land of the big 2010 memories. Some wineries lost their whole supply, many homes were devastated but Chile has recovered well from that awful crisis. New wineries are built into rocky hillsides, multi story building are reinforced to withstand enormous forces. But we were surprised to read today of a 6.2 quake in LaSerena. We dodged that by 13 days. Many of the hotels, public buildings, places we visit have escape routes, safe havens clearly marked in case you need them. In some hotels they stated stand under the doorway and Ted always first checked the escape route anywhere we stayed. 

Infrastructure and growth problems..

 Talking of the sewers, sidewalks and roads are also a total mess everywhere. The highways are very well kept and we paid a lot of tolls so presumably that helps. But get off the main roads and into towns and it’s a whole different story,  as vendors set up temporary shop on the sidewalks, getting moved on by the carabinere if they are illegal. 

  In LaSerena our host John told us they have a huge problem with immigrants from Haiti, who have brought a big drug problem to his city. Apparently large numbers of Haitians were given legal status, a lump sum cash payment and are now infiltrating anywhere they can. 

  We also found a lot of the labor force is from Venezuela. Obviously that country is going to hell in a handbasket at a rate of knots and lovely young people keen to work and make their mark are entering Chile and finding lots of work. 

  Mention you are from Canada, and they are effusive about who they know who has managed to get there, what a heavenly place it is, safe, beautiful, clean. Yup, we are lucky that’s for sure.