Buenos Aires-Iguazu Day 1
Buenos Aires-Iguazu
Post Trip OAT Day 1- Friday, December 14, 2007 - Santiago to Maipo Canyon and Winery - Fly to Buenos Aires, Argentina
The wonders of a good night’s sleep - we woke up refreshed and ready for our last day in BEAUtiful Chile.
We had time to post the last two journals and go through the remaining e-mail messages. After breakfast, we stored our luggage for the day and got on our bus at 9:45 for our next discovery.
Only 18 of us chose to go on this adventure, others had the morning at leisure to explore Santiago on their own. Our first stop was a very small public school. We journeyed to the countryside southeast of Santiago. The trip was only about 60 minutes, but it was worlds away from the city.
We headed for the Maipo Valley and Las Vertientes, a popular resort in the foothills of the Andes with a view of the winding Maipo River. When we arrived at the school, we were greeted by Carlos, the principal. He told us that 154 children attended the school.
The Grand Circle Foundation supports this pre K - 8th grade school with 1% of the cost of our OAT trip. We sang a little song to the kindergarten class, Itsy-Bitsy Spider in English and they sang it back to us in Spanish!
Then Carlos gave us a detailed power-point presentation of the goals and achievements of the school in the past six months. He also showed us before and after pictures of the school describing improvements made with the GCT Foundations money.
We left the school at noon and drove to the winery. Around the world, Chile is well known for its native wines, and the Maipo Valley boasts some of the country’s most famous commercial wine producers.
Here we visited the Cavas del Raco Winery, a privately owned, family winery established in 1950. Jaime, the son of the founding father of the company was our host. Jaime explained the family business and the hand processing of the grapes for fine wine.
Of course, no visit to a winery would be complete without a taste of the final product—so we had the chance to taste several different types of wine and hear an expert description of each one.
We had a beautiful day at this vineyard at 2000 feet of altitude. It was 72 degrees and only 43% humidity, a perfect mini-climate for growing grapes. The varieties we tasted were:
- Chardonnay Reserva (2004)
- Sauvignon Blanch Oak Medley (2004)
- Rosé (2004)
- Cabernet Sauvignon Reserva (2004)
- Muscatel Del Abuelo (2005)
Jaime gave us a hint for those who get headaches from drinking red wine. He said not to blame it on the sulfates, but the reason is the natural histamines in the wine. He suggested taking an anti-histamine 30 minutes before drinking.
We had the chance to purchase a bottle but because of the new TSA rules, it is very difficult to take home. I guess we will just have to drink it while we are here!
After our vineyard visit, Maria Elena treated us to a special typical lunch. We went to a very tiny café known only to the locals and enjoyed our last meal with empanadas in this beautiful and generous country of Chile.
At 5:30 we transferred to the airport for our flight from Santiago to Buenos Aires, Argentina. LAN Chile did not honor the assigned seats so we were placed in the middle and window.
Our flight departure was changed three times but we finally left Santiago at 9:25. We arrived in Buenos Aires on time and rapidly picked up our luggage and went through all immigration requirements.
Once outside we waited for the bus that was late in arriving. Once we saw our bus the luggage was quickly loaded and we were off. Maria Elena bought all of us a bottle of water to carry over the night.
As we drove to downtown Buenos Aires we saw that the city was alive at 1 AM. We arrived at our hotel, quickly checked in, and then waited for our luggage before we could go to bed.
Accomodations: Reconquista Garden Hotel - - - Meal: B
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Map of Post Trip to Buenos Aires
Kindergarten Class
Jaime and Wines
Wine Tasting
Eating an Empanada
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