We start with a different transit group today, Colchagua Wine Tours. Today is a light day, with a pickup in Teno and drop off at our hotel in Santa Cruz after a short drive. Our driver/guide is Francisco, he and his wife Connie own the company. We are staying at the Hotel Vendimia Parador in Santa Cruz, a very small hotel in what was once a hacienda. Mauricio and Carla are the owners and neither speak English.
Francisco helps us with the check in and then takes us back to town and drops us at the Museo de Colchagua. The Museum was established in 1995 to house the private collection of Carlos Cardoen. It has a lot of pre-Columbian artifacts in addition to a room dedicated to the 33 miners who were rescued after 69 days underground in 2010.
We need to stop at the bank and also pick up some batteries, so we walk to the town square. Afterward we decide to take an Uber back to the hotel. What an interesting experience as the driver spoke no English and Dick speaks no Spanish and the guy called to figure out where we were in the middle of the square. Once we connect, we have him drop us at Laura Hartwig, a winery down the street from the hotel. We try some of their wines and then walk back through the vineyard to the hotel. They even have ‘street’ signs in the middle of the vineyard pointing the way.
We have some inventory that needs to be reduced, so we take a glass out to the terrace. Carla is entertaining some of the other guests. Soon we are invited to join the group, 2 of them are filmmakers doing some work in the area. Carla is a master at Google translate and is quite lively. Later we walk across the street and have a nice meal at Restaurant Casa Colchagua.
M
After a short walk around the property and breakfast, our new driver picks us up at the lodge for the hour and a half drive to Santa Cruz, the epicenter of Chile’s largest wine region – Colchagua. Francisco is very nervous about the narrow, wooden bridge he crossed on the way to the lodge so on the way out he drives through the creek instead!
In downtown Santa Cruz is a really nice private museum with artifacts from Chilean & Peruvian prehistory and a special exhibit on Chile’s mine disaster. A very entertaining Uber driver hauled us to the Laura Hartwig Winery. We had no idea what he was talking about (Espaniol), but it was hilarious and he never stopped smiling.
Our lodging in Santa Cruz is at an old hacienda, Vendima Parador. It’s a little bootworn but nice. Nobody speaks English, but the manager, Carla is a good with Google Translate so we figure things out pretty quickly. She’s hilarious, very bubbly, loves selfies, and is a spitting image of Charo, the ‘coochie-coochie’ gal of the 60’s.
After happy hour on the patio with a few other guests at the Parador, we headed out for dinner. Just across the street from the hacienda is a traditional Chilean restaurant, Casa Colchagua. They had a great wine & beer list of probably 40 items. Sadly, only 3 were available. Good fun and great lambchops!
D.
