On Sunday, as it seems usual for this phase of our trip, we had nothing planned.  After talking about what to do and whether to even do anything (it’s in the high 80s, low 90s and HOT), we decided to go to the Barrio Bella Vista for lunch and then to the Pablo Neruda home.  We asked the concierge for a lunch suggestion, and she said Barrica 94 was one of her favorites.  We took one of the hotel cars to Bella Vista, found the restaurant and had a feast of Chilean food.  Alan started off with Sopa de Choritos (mussel soup) and I had Manchas which are Chilean razor clams.  Now we have eaten our share of razor clams in Venice, but these looks like a Gilette blade rather than a straight razor, and tasted like oysters Bienville.  Both dishes were outstanding.

 

 

For a main dish, Alan got Chorillana de pollo, which turned out to be creamed chicken on fried potatoes with poached eggs on top.  He says he has eaten enough fried potatoes to have broken the Irish potato famine.  I had camerones a pil-pil which were shrimp cooked in garlic and chile oil and a Chilean tomato, onion, and pepper salad.  Yum and spicy!

 

We walked over to the Pablo Neruda house and toured it.  There were no pictures allowed inside, but we managed a few outside.  Neruda was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1971, was a native Chilean, and actually had three different houses across Chile.  He died in 1973.

Bella Vista is a funky, hip, artsy neighborhood that we liked a lot an if e ever get back to Santiago, we will probably stay in this area.  Here are a few pictures from the area.

That night, late, we managed sushi and satay in the hotel bar, and had our first Pisco Sours of the trip. Boy, are they good and are they lethal!

The next day was Monday and since all the museums are closed, we decided to make the sacrifice and go to a vineyard for a tour and tasting.  Someone has to take one for the team, right?  We had a pizza in the bar before we left, because we promised the tour manager we wouldn’t go on an empty stomach.  We went to Concha y Toro vineyard, about an hour outside of Santiago.  We can get this Chilean wine at home sometimes so didn’t make any purchases.  We had a great vineyard guide and thoroughly enjoyed ourselves.

We had made reservations for El Cid, the restaurant in the hotel where we had had such a great meal the first night.  Again we sat on the terrace and, again, had a wonderful meal.  This time the menu was on an iPad in English so Alan ordered black bean soup to start and sea bass as his entrée. Turned out that sea bass and the corvina are the same fish, so he had the same meal again.  He said he didn’t mind at all, but wasn’t going to take the same picture.  I had tuna carpaccio, and then a grilled hearts of palm salad with tiger shrimp. We had a cheese mouse amuse bouche to start.  No dessert this time, we were way too full.

 

Today we decided to go to the Museo de Bellas Artes (Art Museum).  Again we used one of the hotel transport cars and got to the museum around 11.  It had some really interesting art work, some of which could easily be found in the Venice Biennale, they were that avant-garde!  The Contemporary Art museum is currently closed, so this museum was showing contemporary art.

After leaving there, we crossed the river and walked to the Mercado Vega Central.

On the way, there were loads of small, local shops selling clothing, jewelry, and electronics.  There were street vendors everywhere and people selling used clothing, kitchenware, and lots of other stuff off of sheets and blankets laid on the street.  The Vega Mercado is mostly fruits and vegetables and is crowded with people and vendors.  It was such fun to see all the different produce and to feel like we were truly in a different country.  We ate lunch at a small sangucheria or sandwich shop at the market and it was amazingly good, huge amounts of sandwich, and no pictures.  The people at the sandwich shop were so friendly but so has everyone we have come into contact with in Santiago.

 

One of the weird New Mexican expressions is “I’m going to get a sangwich for lunch.”   Apparently this is a legitimate Spanish word, sangucha.

Tomorrow we have to have our luggage in the hallway for 8 AM and we are scheduled for a 9:30 shuttle to the ship in San Antonio, about 1 1/2 hours away.  If the internet is true to form on the ship, it won’t be great so just keep checking to see if we have posted a blog.  We will when we can.  Hasta la vista!