Casablanca, a major wine region is midway between Valparaiso and Santiago. To check off a few more wineries, we spent the first half of the day at Casa Del Bosque and Viña Matetic. Our original plan was to see a few more vineyards but decided to head to Pomaire in search for handmade ceramic cookware for Andrea. We had no idea that it would be such a busy town! We had no pesos left and there were no ATMs and very few shops would take US$ or credit card. After se...

This morning we spotted "Wally's" red and white striped shirt in the middle of the Sotomayer square. Priscilla, our walking tour guide is a bubbly, enthusiastic and funny Chilean native. For a few hours we roamed the UNESCO World Heritage streets of Valparaiso. A few highlights: - The rise and fall of the town was due to gold rush in California. Valparaiso became the hot spot to stop as it was halfway from Europe to CA. Then the Panama Canal was built... - The ...

Enjoying the Chilean cuisine so much, we signed up for a cooking class to learn a thing or two. Ines, our culinary guide for the day met us at a cafe in the Sotomayer Square. Our first task was to procure the ingredients necessary so we hopped on city bus and made our way to the market. Heaping piles of vegetables, spices, nuts, olives, meats and seafood tempted us in every aisle. We spent the greater part of a day preparing the Chilean classics, pebre, empanada...

Packed up again, we headed for the coast. The drive from Santa Cruz to Valparaiso was less than two hours but we packed in quite a bit along our route. One of our favorite Chilean wines is Chocolan and unbeknownst to us, it was on our way! It made for a nice quick visit and potty break. Pablo Neruda is a famous and quite eccentric poet who had several houses throughout Chile. One of the more unique estates is located at Isla Negra and is now a museum. We spent ...

At the Colchagua Museum by 10am for lessons in history focusing on South America, we were very impressed with the expansive and well displayed collection. Among many other things this museum contained a gun from the 1500's made out of ivory, etched by Leonardo DiVinci and a mummy older than the mummies in Egypt. All that thinking made us quite thirsty so we headed to Mont Gras for our much anticipated make your own wine tour. Another highlight of the trip, we ta...