Liz and Richard in South America 2006

Santiago

Santiago is big (6+ million people), sprawling (it reminds us most of Los Angeles), but European in character (the core is redolent of Barcelona). We stayed for 6 days in an all suites hotel. Functional, efficient, and much hot water (our new standard!).

There is a rich history here that most North Americans (ourselves included) know little about. The city is transcribed by great avenues with romantic names celebrating recent historical events (September 11^th being the most poignant – not only the recent event but the Pinochet coup). The neighbourhoods bisected by the avenues are individualistic and often charming.

Two intersecting streets (London and Paris) are characterized by eponymous architecture; Bellavista (at the base of the funicular that ascends one of the urban mountains) is a cornucopia of bistros and bars; Providencia (where we stayed) is Paris like with a continuous sequence of sidewalk cafes. Of course there is a much less affluent Santiago that we don’t see (just as there is in London, Paris or Toronto).

The recommended tourist sites are mainly churches, monuments and museums – none of which we do well – particularly the churches, confirmed by one ten minute visit. We did what we do best in big cities – we dined.

After a visit to the zoo (much fun) and a ride up the funicular, we planned each day around eating very well.

Chilean produce is excellent – particularly seafood. And they have evolved a cadre of superb chefs catering to an obviously discerning local clientele – with restaurants ranging from basic through bistros to deluxe. We tried them all.

Our favourites were 2 upscale restaurants (similar to a Michelin 1 star) – Aqua (1 visit) and Astrid and Gaston (3 visits - it was closer!) plus a number of other bars, cafes and hot dog shops (Santiago loves hot dogs), ice cream parlors and airports. Other than on the plane, we never ate badly in Santiago.

For all those faithful blog viewers who have expressed concern about too much culture and too many animals, we will now do what we are best at – food!

Agua - Very modern, very LA. 

Note in the shot below taken from our table - the Mercedes in front, the gated home beyond, with many Chilean businessmen with cellular implants, requisite number of "ladies who lunch" and a multilingual waiter who defined Chile (more about him later).

Liz was looking particularly lovely with her Galapagos tan so we’ll start with the best dish in the restaurant.

Liz opened with one of the best meals we’ve had in a long time….a salad of spider crab, avocado, cucumber and tomato, wrapped in a shrimp skin with cilantro sauce and morel oils. The shrimp skin is the magic. Shelled shrimp pounded until their flesh aggregates into a skin to form the shrimp skinned purse shown below. This was how it was described to us. We think there were quite a few other procedures in creating this succulent dish…again as so often in Chile, a fusion of Japanese sushi techniques with European haute cuisine to evolve an individualist style.

Richard was boring – chose breaded shrimps. They were fine but didn’t make the kitchen breathe hard.

For her main, Liz had risotto steeped in lobster broth, with crayfish and lobster medallions. Exceptional flavor and texture.

Richard’s Main was conger eel in shallots, bay leaf and sea urchin sauce. Perfectly textured fish (expected more bones and gristle from eel) perched on a wonderful sauce. As always the pedestal on which the fish is perched can be a surprise treasure. In this case an “olluco tortilla”

Overall a wonderful restaurant….relaxing style, solidly prepared, innovative food pairings…plus a waiter who epitomized Chile – multilingual, charming, taking courses in international marketing, brother home in Argentina. They figure that Chile beat Argentina to the international wine market, but if they learn from the Chilean experience they can do it better. We think they define what entrepreneur is all about. We do love the South American vitality.

On to Astrid and Gaston

Highly rated, stylish, one of 4 restaurants owned by a couple (others in Lima, Bogotá and Quito) and only a 5 minute walk from our hotel.

Following are taste highlights:

For openers, an ameuse geule of smoked salmon and avocado. Have we mentioned that South American avocadoes are wonderful? We think it’s because they ripen standing up from the stem (the hemisphere difference relative to the sun’s rays).

Next a perfect fusion dish of three kinds of sashimi (tuna, salmon and sea bass) in a subtly spicy sauce.

The Chileans love soup…and do it well. We think it was Paul Bocuse who said that the quality of their soup defines a kitchen. We’re learning to eat soup. Below, king crab and mascarpone soup with stuffed rocotito pepper.

Back to fusion – Easter Island tuna with yellow chili sauce and scallop tartar. Sashimi and sushi are wonderful but can be a little boring. The South American fusion style preserves the purity of the raw fish while accentuating it with various flavours beyond the traditional wasabi/soy spectrum. We should have photographed these dishes cut open to show the internal layering and composition. This particular offering was sublime.

Supporting players can be the stars of a dish. The following sea bass in a crust of tomato pesto on a bed of bean cannelloni contained pleasant fish…but the bean cannelloni, whose primary function is to add height to the dish – were spectacular. We ate half the fish and devoured all the support structure (by the way, Chilean portions are large…not Wal Mart super fatty size, but substantial).

Next, the best tuna we’ve ever tasted. Easter Island tuna crusted in spices with wasabi and shrimp tempura. The claw like structures are purple potato croquettes. We should have shot the tuna cut open – it was like eating a chunk of meaty butter, absolutely perfect texture.

Chileans (as are many South Americans) are big pasta eaters. The following was described as “dry soup” by Astrid and Gaston….a savory mélange of seafood, hot peppers, and linguini….just fine and definitely not dry.

We never eat dessert, but we were on a roll one meal so we closed with chocolate truffles deep fired in batter and sauced with orange and caramel. Apparently one of the immigrant waves included a number of European chocolatiers…so Chileans are chocolate junkies.

Santiago 2

Santiago was filled with good dining. Below, Pork loin, and Bass with Spinach from our favourite bistro – Bar Liguria.

To repeat our mantra – the South Americans have not bred all the fat out of their pork. It still tastes really, really, really good. Eat South American pork, climb mountains for 3 hours a day, and your body thrives!

Following are a couple of shots of really good bar food in the Bellavista area that came with some memorable conversation (a commercial director from LA, who lives in Vancouver, but was in Chile shooting Polish beer commercials!)

And the Chilean answer to poutine – chips with steak, cheese and fried onions….and if you’re feeling a little cholesterol deprived you can have it with 2 fried eggs on top.

Why order a jug of beer when you can have your own tap? As shown below, they bring them to your table.

We liked Santiago. It’s safe, functional, has great transportation, friendly people, very good food and – while not cheap – is not exorbitant. The transportation system is particularly notable. Honest taxis, a great, extensive and easy to use subway system and the most buses we’ve ever seen.

As we understand it – and we could be wrong – the Santiago transit authority allows different private companies to compete on the same route. We took one bus from “A” to “B” for 250 pesos; the return on another company was 300 pesos. There are a lot of buses competing for patronage. Perhaps Toronto could learn from the Santiago system.

Santiago has some lovely parks….and they’re a good way to close our visit to Chile’s capital.

Rounding Cape Horn on the Mare Australis

We cruised for 3 days on the Mare Australis, out of Ushuaia Argentina.

The Mare Australis is 235 feet long, 44 feet wide and was built in 2002.  It holds 129 passengers and 40 crew.

We flew from Santiago to Ushuaia, Argentina which claims to be the southern most city in the world - we boarded Mare Australis for our 3 night cruise to Cape Horn and through the Beagle Channel and Strait of Magellan....here´s the route:

Here's a shot taken at the Ushuaia port - Holland America's Rotterdam was in port that day - good comparison of size of the ships!

Following are a few shots of the interior of the ship - the dining room, the bar, our cabin which had a nice big window, and our bathroom (functional, clean and lots of hot water - we comment alot about hot water, don't we!!??)

“All Inclusivo” – the God of Tourism – has smiled on our trip to date – and particularly at Cape Horn. We rounded the world’s most infamous transit in perfect weather – sunshine and calm seas. (Normally our cruise takes the inside passage - the last time they actually transited the Cape was last November). Below, Liz and Dick with Cape Horn in the background and a shot from our ship of what has been the graveyard of at least 800 vessels. It’s just a hunk of rock, but we were moved.

 

If you want more extreme cruising, here’s a 50’ steel sloop that had just sailed from Antarctica – the crew looked tired!

You see us at Cape Horn. What is more interesting is what the cruise people have to do to get us there. 

First of all we have to dress up like Gumby. Rubber pants, waterproof jackets, orange life jackets, gloves, hats, cameras wrapped in plastic bags. Then we get on to the zodiacs – awkwardly!  The Mare Australis has 6 zodiacs:

To go ashore, the crew of our ship transport a steel dock which they put in place so we tourists don’t get our feet wet (this is not the sun drenched Galapagos). The water is 5 degrees Celsius – if you fall in your life expectancy is 15 minutes. When we disembark from the zodiacs they have 2 staff in the water (in wet suits) in case one of us takes a swim. Their sense of safety is impressive.

They also have two one-man zodiacs that act as “outriders” when we cruised the fjords in the large zodiacs – they ride alongside in case anyone falls off the passenger zodiacs.

Life for a guy does not get better than being a zodiac driver. 

The chips on the zodiac props were are not the result of rocks – it’s the ice in the fjords which makes much noise when you go over a small berg.

One amusing by product of landings is that in order to “de-Gumbiate” the passengers all leave their life jackets as a temporary orange day-glo graffito on the harsh landscape.

One of the joys of the cruise was the porpoises. They come leaping out of the side fjords like welcoming puppies. Easily outrunning our ship, they surf in the wake – it was pure exuberance (photos are a little hard to make out).

Tierra del Fuego is the land God gave to Cain, but it is hauntingly beautiful, as hopefully captured in the following portraits.

Next, glacier gazing….what we came for and we weren’t disappointed on our trips to the ice falls of 3 glaciers – 2 actually, since the third glacier has retreated from the fjord, believed to be a result of global warming. The blue of the ice (about 100-150 years old) is perfect – bracketing the ice fronts are numerous art-directed waterfalls and a large number of birds roosting next to the ice.

Setting the mood is one thing we can’t share – the sound of the constant clatter of small shards falling into the sea, punctuated by the snare drum crashes of larger floes.

Then a long term dream…..walking with the penguins – 120,000 of them! They are cute, fearless, and simply adorable. They go about their own business and have little concern for ours.

Humans are allowed to walk on roped paths. When the penguins cross, you must stop – but who wouldn’t to watch miniature butlers out for a stroll. Pairs live in burrows and there is much affectionate mutual greeting.

One thing that surprised us was how far inland some of them have to walk to their burrows. Waterfront property is clearly prime in the penguin world too!

The Lake District - 1

We left the Mare Australis at Punta Arenas – the primary Chilean port in Patagonia and a major embarkation point for expeditions to Antarctica. Not one of the most charming or interesting cities, although in fairness there is a volatile history of wool market booms, and 2 family magnates who built mansions and monuments as the strove for primacy…only to eventually inter marry! But Liz came through – she found the best restaurant in town….and one of the best on our trip.

Restaurant La Luna – not pretentious, actually a really good bar (the crew from our ship was there having their 4 hour break). We had 3 dishes – all good and one of which was epic.

Crab salad – the picture says it all – mounds of fresh, perfectly shelled king crab. Liz has decided that there is no limit to how much crab she can eat.

Followed up with scallops poached with hot peppers – we needed a flavour hit as cruise food does tend to the bland.

And then the masterpiece – Crab Chupe. Chupe is a standard Chilean dish (fish or shellfish and cheese and breadcrumbs with a mayo like sauce – baked in a crock). Simple, but incredibly good – we eat it often. Luna’s is the best – 90% crab, great flavour, a marvelous thick crust of molten cheese brule. Like all cuisine the best is the simplest. We’d travel a long way for more La Luna chupe with a loaf of good bread and some local beer. The German heritage guarantees great beer with the unfortunate name of “Kuntsman”

It was one of the best meals we’ve had in a long, long time – simple, perfect ingredients well prepared, great service and a very reasonable price….sadly they are literally at the end of the world. Chupe could become the next North American bar food craze after natchos and Thai.

We flew to Puerto Montt for a few days – ostensibly for administrative purposes; do some laundry, pick up the rental car, sleep later than 6:30am after those early morning zodiac excursions. Liz found a great hotel – notable for having the best showers in Chile (infinite amounts of hot water, needle sharp wide dispersion nozzles, good soap, curtain that stays in the bath, towels you can dissolve into, 3 hour turnaround for laundry) and one of our more memorable culinary experiences.

We’ve eaten at many 3 stars, we travel hundreds of miles to taste some upcoming chef’s cuisine, we subscribe to too many food magazines and web sites….but we had never experienced Puerto Montt and its market, Angelmo. Imagine a large market with a lot of stalls – but here the stall was a little dining room as shown below – there are dozens of these rooms:

Outside each room is a refrigerated cooler with esoteric ingredients and a lady or two with a propane fired wok or grill or broiler. You pick what you want – they cook it to order. Pictures do not do it justice. Interestingly each location does not have a name, just a number – in fact there are numbered restaurants all over town – we’ve considered a return visit to work through all the numbers!

We had lunch at the restaurant below – sat at the right outside balcony table (there were a dozen numbered restaurants in this building alone).

Puerto Montt is a cornucopia of dining options. If we added up all the numbered locations we’d probably have more restaurants/capita than Paris!

Fueling this dining Eldorado is a wonderful fish and vegetable market – filled with many things we’ve never seen before. Note the different sea weeds, dried and smoked shellfish, esoteric vegetables and mussels the size of your fist.

The Lake District - 2

Now driving our tiny but peppy Peugot, we lurched through the Chilean Lake District (Richard learned once again that you must push in the clutch while changing gears).

Some moments en route:

The well publicized stilt houses of Chiloe – with their easter egg colours

Liz and Dick discover a food inhibition! -- a bowl of stewed minnows with garlic sounded to be to our taste – but as Liz tactfully described it “too many eyeballs”.

A monstrous sized yoke of oxen – wonderfully noble beasts. It’s sad to see them passing in favour of a tractor.

We had a fun lunch in Castro at Octavios. Lovely water front location, warm staff and solid basic regional food. Liz finally had Curanto – a stew of fish, mussels, chicken, sausage, smoked pork hock and two kinds of meat filled dumplings. It was OK – but we prefer our fowl, fish, pork and crustaceans separately – but it is a very showy dish.

Richard had a simple dish – a huge slab of poached salmon, covered in fried onions, covered in a vegetable puree and surrounded with French fries (wonderful ones). In case you are more than peckish, they offer the option of 2 fried eggs laid on top – no kidding.

This is lovingly well prepared food with clean flavours, but it is very much designed for someone who is going to leave the table and brave the south Pacific for 10 days catching crabs from frigid water!

But we’d go back to Octavio – it was honest food based on great ingredients – we’d just split one dish between the two of us.

A delightful side benefit to our Octavio visit. The 2 couples at the next table were from England and Winnipeg respectively. There were traveling with a guide as we did in Peru. Paulina is 30 years old and learned English by winning a student exchange scholarship when she was 15. She chose “somewhere where they have snow at Christmas” – they sent her to North Dakota!

We’ve become fascinated by student exchange programs. They are low profile, but the number of people in the travel business in South America who got their inspiration from a student exchange is amazing (6 of 10 of the guides we’ve met).

It’s a low cost, simple program that probably does more for world peace than anything George Bush paid Halliburton to do….or not do.

For scheduling reasons we needed to pause a day. Went to Puerto Varas – expecting to relax and vegetate. Instead had much fun. Liz found us a great hotel – always send Liz in to book. They loved her so much that they upgraded us to a two floor suite.

Here in the south of Chile we found a terrific Mexican restaurant/bar. After too many chips, nachos, salsa, etc we retired to the hotel to try to find the volcano. Puerto Varas is famous for the view across the lake of a large snow covered volcano. But no volcano was to be seen (see view from our hotel window below). We decided the volcano must be around the corner of the lake and went to bed.

In the morning we awoke to this – our very own Mount Fuji!

We literally spent the day watching the light change around it, as shown in the pictures below.

There are actually 2 volcanoes overlooking the lake and a bunch of parasitic cones. The whole area is like a very undeveloped Muskoka (north of Toronto), but with volcanoes!

As we write we’re almost up to date. We’re in Villarrica on Lago Villarrica, one of the burgeoning resort towns, growing to serve the expanding Chilean middle class. Again, it looks like Muskoka 50 years ago, but with the obligatory snow capped volcanoes looming over the lake. Staying in a deluxe cottage compound run by two American ex-pats from Montana-wonderful people who are making our stay perfection by serving Mexican food in their dining room. Tomorrow a small plane ride to peer into the volcano caldera and a boat ride down the gentle rapids (we’re assured the rapids are gentle)

We're here for 5 days, then off to Easter Island and then home.

It seems we just left Toronto. Time has flown by. We have met so many interesting people-just today the large group in the hotel are from Jimmy Carter’s “Habitat For Humanity” …they are down here building homes for local people. When we travel to Europe we meet mirrors of ourselves-foodies, cultural visit collectors, Europhiles. South America has been very different. Our travel encounters are people who have and who do more.

Staring into the Volcano Villarica!

This morning we boarded a Cessna 172 to see the Volcano Villarica - here's a few photos - more commentary later but wanted to post for our flying friend Jim!

Rene and Liz with the plane

The volcano is 2,800 metres (approx 9,000 feet) high - here's a view of it as we fly over the lake - the first part of the flight is a tour of all the beautiful houses on Lake Villarica as the pilot gains altitude to fly over the volanco

Here's a view as we get closer to the volcano

And here's a view INTO the volcano - we were right over the caldera (at about 9,700 feet) - you can see the red lava glow.....then we banked sharply to the left and circled around again - our pilot friend Jim says "blue side up" - this was definitely "blue side sideways"!

Upon our return to the hotel they said - "oh you flew over the volanco? - the regular pilot won't"!!

This afternoon is a lazy river boat trip - no white water - we've had our excitement for today!

A Valdivia Flashback!

In our volcano overflight enthusiasm we skipped our stay in Valdivia.  Not the prettiest town in Chile, but a fun fish market, lovely garden hotel and a good base for some interesting day trips.

Here's a pic of our hotel room and the garden - Los Renovales:

Our Room is the left hand side walk out to the garden (above). 

We did a day trip to Niebla - where the river flows into the sea.  It's about 24 km away by car or boat ride.  Niebla is part of an elaborate system of 17 forts build by the Spaniards to defend the region.  The British and Chilean nationalists took all 17 forts in one day by landing their troops and attacking from behind rather than from the sea, where all the guns were pointed.  Maginot line thinking appears to be a constant human blind spot!  As we arrived at the fort a nice young man (who was dressed in an officer's uniform) offered to take us on a tour of the fort (for tips only) - we agreed and asked him about his virtually accent-less Engish - turns out he's from Winnipeg!  His dad moved to Winnipeg from Chile, where Emilio was born.  He's in Valdivia at chef school and plans to move to Vancouver when he's finished!

The fort shown is one of the few surviving after an earthquake in the 60s - the earthquake was 9.5 on the richter scale and the tsunami it created hit Easter Island, Hawaii and Japan! - it wiped out whole sections of Valdivia and the surrounding coast.

The area is now a major resort hub with many cottages, campgrounds and restaurants.  It's off season so the restaurants are hungry for customers and all have people beckoning you to their restaurant - we went to the restaurant Emilio recommended and the food was very good.

The above looks like Heinken is paying us for product placement!

And, of course, more crab chupe!  But La Luna's in Punta Arenas is still the best!

The countryside is still pristine with little development.  Gorgeous lakes, no boats, no crowds...just the occasional cottage.  We loved to drive for hours until we found a comfy restaurant - the food was seldom exceptional, but always good.

Valdivia has a wonderful fish and vegetable market, complete with the obligatory bachelor bull seals scrounging for scraps.  We do love seals!

Some of the following photos taken at the market have a pink tone due to the translucent red awning overhead.  There's lovely produce (many things we didn't recognize) and fish so fresh it's still moving - following are a lot of food photos!

Villarica - Hosteria de la Colina

Two ex school teachers from Montana (Glenn and Beverley) and 17 years of gardening creates a miniature Eden overlooking the lake and volcano.  Throw in an excellent kitchen with (we may reconsider the whole God thing) ...... Mexican food!  A lovely cabin, interesting fellow guests plus charming staff and you've got one of the more memorable places we've ever stayed.  Much fun was had by all....

Here's a pic of our favourite plant - Glenn and Bev have the whitest Dusty Miller we've ever seen.....we clearly need one

To give you a flavour of the eclectic cast of players - Day One's fellow guests are a group of "Habitat for Humanity" volunteers on a break from building housing for the Chilean poor and 3 great guys from Iowa who had just biked 800 km around the Lake District.  The bartender and waitress are two American kids hitchhiking their way through South America and were lucky enough to be adopted short term by Glenn and Bev.  Other guests are mountain climbers (yes, they donned crampons and in 4 hours climbed to the mouth of the volcano)....then there's the couple from Illinois in their late 70s who just rent a car and drive without reservations or plans and just go with the flow.  And we thought we knew how to travel!

A short drive away (with lots of help from Glenn) are some of the most beautiful waterfalls we've seen.  Cascading off the volcano they create mini rain forests in their canyons.  Stunning, and as we so often experienced in South America, you're alone in your enjoyment.  We may be the last generation to experience these wonders without crowds.

More on the Plane Ride Over the Volcano

You want to fly over the throat of an active volcano?  Who do you call?  ....  In Villarica you call Rene - the local supermarket manager.

The run up flight before the actual volcano fly past is illuminating.  The photo below looks like a container farm or bad subsidized housing run amok.  It is neither.  It's a holiday home development for the Chilean middle class.  We still don't really believe it, but these high, high density developments are everywhere and numerous people have assured us that the Chileans like to spend holidays very, very, very close to their fellow citizens.  In a country with countless undeveloped pristine lakes it makes no sense (to us), but such is life. 

The wealthier Chileans have made the break from the hive lifestyle.  The Lakeshore is a portfolio of fine vacation homes:

But note - not a boat anywhere.  Yes it is off season (just barely - we were there in the equivalent of the first week of September in North America) but the consensus is that Chileans don't do boats.  Go figure.  A country with a proud naval heritage, a huge fishing fleet and a myriad of lakes....you'd expect ski boats, recreational fishing, sea-doos - but no.  We probably saw 5 recreational boats on the water the whole time we were in the Lake District.

As we circled to gain altitude, we flew over other nearby lakes - pristine and undeveloped:

One of our favourites is this shot of 3 parasitic cones with a small village built between them.  Remember - the primary cone is still smoking and the last lava flow was 1960 (killing 200 people) - you have to wonder about building there!

The whole region is very much part of the Pacific ring of fire.  The cone in the distance in the photo below is actually in Argentina - the lava flow in the foreground is from the 60s - yesterday, in geologic terms

And because it was one of the highlights of our adventure, we'll reprise the run up to the volcano and the look down into the throat of hell - many shots follow!

And the most amazing shot - looking down into the volcano!

Lazin' down the river - Huck Finn Redux

Pumped from our pyroclastic adventure, we opted for tranquility and spent the afternoon drifting down the river in a comfy rowboat with Antonion....a friendly giant of an oarsman.  We dispensed with the fishing poles early and Antonio took us on a bird watchers' tour of this unspoiled wilderness hidden next to busy Villarica.  It wasn't really white water - we described it as "ecru" water rafting!  A delightful afternoon....















The best part is that at the end of our cruise, they load our boat (plus another) into a suspension challenged aging pick up and the 5 of us (with the tiny lady driving)  wend our way over some very rugged roads back to the headwater.  We keep waiting for the truck to just lift its front wheels off the ground and give up.  The whole experience is perfect. 

Antonio is behind the truck/boats - all 6' 4"/300+ pounds of him.  Wonderfully skilled in the boat, marvellously sensitive to showing us what we wanted to see - if ever in the region the trip is a tranquil must do.....with Antonio as guide