Mendoza and Santiago

The last leg of our journey has been a fun one! From our sweet beach town, Villa Gessel, we headed to Mendoza where we spent a few days in wine country with some travel buddies from Colorado. We road bikes from vineyard to vineyard tasting wine at each stop. Yum! We found a few new favorites too! The lower two pics in this blog are from Alta Vista winery where Hunky took some fantastic photos! We left Mendoza and headed straight for Santiago, Chile. I hate to report that at the border crossing, Hank was subject of a pick-pocket and his iPhone has become property to someone new. This was our ONLY negative experience in three countries, unless of course you consider Chilean and Argentine men make kissy noises at you when you walk down the street a negative experience...

Anyway, we met Chelsea (Drew's super awesome girlfriend) and did a walking tour of the Santiago. We were spoiled rotten by her and her friends from HMC Farms (mmm...yummy fruit- check them out hmcfarms.com) with visits to a lovely home, swanky dinners, and Cuban cigars. While Chelsea worked the days away, Hank and I toured the city where we stumbled upon the Terracotta soldiers from China on display in a museum below the Presidential Residence (yay! female president!) in Santiago. This was especially exciting for me because when I visited China in 2006, we didn't get to see these guys. As you can see from the pics above, this art work from 210 B.C. is truly amazing!

Chile is currently in elections for a new president. We arrived on voting day where everything was closed. No stores or restaurants were open and when some restaurants finally opened for dinner, we found that it is illegal to sell alcohol on voting day. Just some fun facts about Chile's election culture.

So, we are heading home tonight with mixed emotions. There is still so much to see and so much to do in South America that I am so bummed we have ran out of time for. We have met really amazing people on this journey and enjoyed the people of these countries greatly. However, returning to our friends and families at home (Miss Pickles- my poodle, included) is an especially rewarding end to a fun journey.

See you all very soon!

H&D