Day 13: The Patagonia Adventure - Driving the Americans

Day 13 - Santiago Wine Tour - Tuesday, 3/7/23

The surprise ending to our wine tour (our tour guides never let us down)

Our last day in Santiago brought in a morning full of packing. Although we had been in a constant state of packing and moving over the last two weeks, now it was time for the big pack, the pack to go home.

With our last clean clothes worn, departure packing was an easier task than packing to get here. Instead of carefully planning the many clothing layers and then placing them in top-to-bottom order as would be needed (shorts and sandals on the bottom), now it was all about getting our dirty clothes to fit in the luggage. Our only strategic pack was setting aside clothes to change into at the airport.

Kristi had one other item to remember to pack in her checked bags: Her hiking poles.

After arriving in Santiago at the start of our trip, Kristi used her hiking backpack as her carry-on, lightening it up and adding iPad and toiletries she would want for the long plane ride from the US. What Kristi didn’t remove from her backpack were her hiking poles. TSA in the US didn’t seem to mind, but Santiago security did. After getting through customs and rechecking our big bags on South American ground, we went to our security checkpoint for our next flight. The poles didn’t make it this time.

Her bag was pulled off of the security screening and the poles were removed. They were not allowed as carry-on. After a conversation in two different languages, Kristi was escorted back to have the poles checked as a bag. Then she had to go through security again. After a long wait and some confusion, Kristi rejoined us with a lighter bag less the poles. Garrett commented that when buying his poles the description pointed out that they would not clear security. Another example of why our husbands are in charge of the details.

Fast forward to our last day. We were all about packing our poles and anything else we could include in our check-in bags. After lugging backpacks for most of our trip, we were all about lightening our load.

Our departure time was not until evening as it was a ten-hour overnight flight. Our husbands booked a half-day wine tour to fill our last afternoon in Santiago. With packed bags stored at the front desks and officially check out of the Luciana K, our tour guide, Chris, picked us up to take us to the vineyard. Driving us outside of Santiago, this driving tour of the city was very different than what we saw the day prior. Instead of affluence, we saw poverty and homelessness. We also drove through the working-class areas. Another great civics lesson from Chris was given on the social structure of the city.

Reaching the vineyard, I soon figured out that Chris was not accompanying us inside. He planned the excursion, but we would be receiving a formal tour from a Concha y Toro staff member. Chris would be waiting for us at his car when we were done.

The vineyard was massive. Per Wikipedia: “Concha y Toro is the largest producer and exporter of wines from Latin America and one of the 10 largest wine companies in the world, with more than 33 million cases sold per year in 2014, distributed in 135 countries.”

Greeted by staff, we were given wristbands that indicated the level of the tour we were to receive. I assumed the choices were a full day or half day, with us being half wristband. I later learned there were more levels with ours being the highest.

Our guide showed us the estate starting with the colonial-style manor house of Don Mechor, the original vineyard owner. The estate includes a church and many beautiful sculptures and ponds. The guide spoke broken English but did a great job of communicating the 130-year-old history of Concha Y Toro and Chilean wine. From the home, she led us to the vineyard where we tasted the grapes. A large area had rows of different grape varieties as marked by signs. The guide encouraged us to explore and try the different grapes by wine type. Later comparing notes, some of us could taste the differences and others could not. I tasted a difference but thought this may have more to do with the ripeness of the grape. Regardless, it was a fun field trip.

On to the vast wine cellar, we saw where the barrels of the best wines were stored. There were stories of robberies and of the ‘best in class’ of wines that had been stored there at optimal temperatures.

The wine tasting was outside with a variety of four tastes from completely different grape varieties. It was interesting tasting the final product after tasting the grape originators. Thinking we were done after being told the wine glasses were ours to keep and escorted to the gift shop, our guide told us she would come and get us when it was our turn for the house.

How odd, I thought. With the house being our first stop of the tour and with us just viewing from the outside, why would we go back to where we started to go inside?

Thinking there was some mix-up in tour timings, we just followed along back to the house. What we found out was that we were on the upper level of the tour that got a private tasting inside the house with our own sommelier. Five glasses were poured, each with a tasting from the prestigious Cellar Collection, waiting for our little group to take our seats around the linen table. A variety of cheeses and nuts were displayed on trays to accompany our palette for each wine. Our skillful sommelier walked us through every sip and bite while we followed along on our fancy-tasting portfolios.

Although we loved our little tasting surprise, we also knew we had a flight to catch and were running a little behind. Thanking our sommelier profusely but apologizing that we needed to leave, we bolted to find Chris waiting for us in the parking lot. As we thanked Chris for organizing such a fun tour, we noticed that the traffic was bad. Chris continued to cheerfully converse with us while constantly watching his map app and rerouting us as we continually got caught in traffic.

Tom was the first to pick up on a potential delay.

“Chris, do you think we will get back to the hotel by 6:30?”

6:30 was our pick-up time to be driven to the airport from the hotel.

“We may be a few minutes late” was Chris’ answer as he redirected the conversation while passing cars and finding side roads.

Without internet service and no phone number to the hotel front desk, we all just quietly hoped our airport van would wait for us. We soon found out that although we didn’t need Chris for our wine tour, his services as our driver were our gift for the day He knew the city inside and out. Although we ended up weaving through Santiago's downtown rush hour traffic, Chris got us to our hotel at 6:38. The front desk attendant had our bags ready and our van driver was waiting with a smile. With a quick change of vehicles and generous tipping to the guys who made this exchange happen, we were off to the airport.

Our van driver did not speak English but we were able to communicate the essentials to get us to our gate for our international flight home. After a smooth ride to the airport, we were ready for our flights.

Clothes changed. Bags checked. A pole-free security check. We were on the last leg of our adventure; our overnight flight home.

With some more time before Garrett and my flight to Dallas and Tom and Kristi’s to Atlanta, Tom located an airport lounge for us to catch a bite to eat and relax. Tom has a swanky pass to the airport lounges with a phone app that guides him to the locations at every airport. This was a new luxury for Garrett and me; a much more relaxing way to energize before a long flight than the craziness of airport terminals. Per Tom, this is a must-have when you are traveling a lot or internationally. I’m sold.

After Tom got our party of four into the lounge (down a secret elevator, off the beaten path), we felt like we were in the first-class section of an airplane. A buffet was stocked with a variety of food with all kinds of drink choices from sparkling waters to sparkling wine. As we charged our devices and enjoyed a snack, Kristi slipped her shoes off and got comfy. It took about two minutes for one of the uniformed lounge attendants to come and tell her shoes were required to stay on the feet and on the floor. Ok, this was serious stuff. Kristi, a rule follower, would not make that mistake again.

After hugs and final goodbyes, Garrett and I left the luxuries of the lounge to tackle the boarding process for our overnight flight. As our boarding group was called I thought I heard the airline attendant say to make sure we didn’t have any water. Looking around to double-check that we really were past security, I decided that I heard her wrong. Nope. I heard her correctly. No water in the plane. With several airline workers checking our carry-on bags, all liquids had to be poured out or tossed. That was a new one for us and made for dry mouths for the first thirty minutes of the flight.

Later after we all arrived at our US connecting airports, Kristi and I exchanged texts. They too had to empty their water bottles and this wasn’t something they have ever had to do in International travel. Obviously, there was some heightened security. Kristi shared that although a smooth flight with lots of sleep, she was next to a crabby man who was complaining that he didn’t get upgraded after giving up his seat to a woman who couldn’t walk well. My flight was similarly smooth but I had a young couple behind me that kept trying to sleep on the floor of the plane. After the flight attendant told them twice that this wasn’t allowed, the third time she was angry.

“I have now told you three times that laying on the floor is both dangerous and against flight rules. If I have to tell you again…”

All I could do was pray that this would not become some viral story of bad-behaving airline passengers that forced the plane to make an early landing.

<please, please, please….sleep in your seats like the rest of us...>

My prayers were answered as we landed quietly in Dallas hours later. As far as I know, they stayed in their seats.

With our first US text exchanges upon landing, Kristi and I shared photos of our very American first luxury purchase of a Starbucks coffee. We added our appreciation for large bathrooms with flushing power (no more toilet paper in trash cans). Kristi nailed it with her analysis.

“I’m struck at the excess and opulence of the USA. We have so much. We are lucky… And sleeping on the floor!?!? I felt bad taking my shoes off in the lounge!”

Ha. Welcome home. As we reacquainted ourselves with US ground, Kristi’s final text description was perfect: “An extraordinary adventure”

The Wine Tour - Concha y Toro