Day 33 Wed 26th April Lay in until 7.30am before tour of the Undurrage vineyard and cellars in the famous Maipo wine valley. Ps my Spanish isn't getting better as managed to order Rabbit on top of spaghetti last night..........yum...... The tour was great and I didn't realise the grapes used for wine production were always much smaller than normal eating grapes, we got to try the top quality ones straight off the vine as they had loads of taste :o) Undurrage are the second largest producer of wine in Chile and the oldest and their operation is very high tech now. The walls to the cellars are so thick up to 1m that they have survived al the recent major earthquakes. Incidentally our hotel has a sign saying in the event of fire and EARTHQUAKES please do not use the lift, which is the first time I have ever seen this advice. The best bit was the tasting, with very generous portions and no spitting bucket, so we all felt a bit smashed when we left and they let us keep the tasting glass too, but I gave mine away as I thought it would be the first thing to get broken in my rucksack. It is 30 degrees and hot and sunny so sat by the pool and had a glass of champers over lunch, before going on a city tour of Santiago. It is the capital of Chile and its 6m inhabitants represent one third of the entire population of this long thin country stretching 400km from top to bottom. It is surrounded my mountains so suffers from Smog when it gets hot and in the winter when the cold air acts like a roof. Its clean and modern and calls itself Sunhattan in the business sector as its like Manhattan only sunny! Visited the main square with its enormous Catholic church and the Presidential palace which had its doors blown off by rockets from fighter planes during the military coup and surrounding buildings still show the bullet marks, but now is very peaceful after the departure of Pinochet. Went up the 300m hill in the middle of town for a fab view of the city just as the sun was setting :o)