Sipping and Surfing? Colchagua to Pichilemu

Two hours south of Santiago, as I leave the freeway, trucks with bins of grapes slow the traffic on the westbound two-lane road toward the town of Santa Cruz, in Chile’s Colchagua valley. With the warm dry March weather, it feels like September in the Napa Valley, in my home state of California. This, though, is farther than a day trip from my house, so I’ll spend several days sampling the wines and dining in the country’s premier wine district—tourist-friendly Colchagua is due to host next year’s Congreso Mundial de Enoturismo (World Wine Tourism Conference).

The balconies at Hotel TerraViña have vineyard views.

My first stop is the Danish-Chilean Hotel TerraViña, nearly surrounded by vineyards on the outskirts of town, where I’ve stayed on previous trips. From here, it’s a short stroll through the vines to Viña Laura Hartwig, which now offers carriage rides through its grounds and new tasting facilities for an expanded wine list. They’re part of the Movimiento de Viñateros Independientes (MOVI), an alliance of smaller wineries with an increasingly high profile. I sample a Cabernet, a Merlot and a blend, accompanied by a plate of almonds, cheese, cold cuts and crackers.

Wines to sample in the recova at Laura Hartwig

View across the soggy lawn at Hotel Casa de Campo

The next morning, I move across town to the Hotel Casa de Campo, where the only drawback to my spacious room is its relative proximity to the highway. Fortunately, its French doors face a sprawling lawn with views of the Chilean coast range, though I’m a bit shocked to see the flood-style irrigation in an area where water's at a premium. I’m pleasantly surprised, though, when a gardener knocks on the door with a bowl of freshly picked prunes.

Santa Cruz's Plaza de Armas

From there, I head to Santa Cruz’s walkable downtown, with a lushly landscaped Plaza de Armas surrounded by low-slung buildings and a parish church that was totally rebuilt—on its original design—after severe earthquake damage in 2010 forced its demolition. On this visit I skipped the imposing Museo Colchagua, created by Iran-Contra arms merchant Carlos Cardoen, whose foundation also financed the church’s reconstruction, but the museum’s natural history and agricultural machinery displays are well worth seeing.

The Museo de Colchagua is part of a complex that also includes a hotel and a casino.

After severe quake damage in 2010, Santa Cruz's Iglesia Parroquial underwent  demolition for a total rebuild on the original plan.

Quinotto of scallops, shrimp, and squid at Casa Colchagua 

That afternoon, I eat on the patio at Casa Colchagua, a renovated adobe just a stone’s throw from TerraViña. Rather than bread, the appetizer is a sopaipilla enhanced by the savory tomato-onion-garlic salsa known as pebre. For the main course, there’s quinotto with shrimp, scallops and squid rings–Chile’s diverse seafood is world-class—plus a pisco sour with a touch of ají verde, and a nice glass of Sauvignon Blanc.

José Antonio Bravo opens up his tiny adobe at OWM Wines

In the afternoon, I drive to the village of El Peral to visit OWM Wines, a low-tech operation that produces only blends and does much of the work manually, while bodega itself is a tiny adobe within a far larger garage full of heavy machinery. With a minimum of two guests (maximum of eight), winemaker José Antonio Bravo does the tours himself, and encourages guests to make their own blends. Later, back in Santa Cruz, I dine at Vino Bello—an established Italian option—for a seafood risotto.

Patio dining at Vino Bello

The patio and tasting room at Clos Santa Ana

The next day, an unseasonably rainy one, I meet British photographer Matt Wilson and his wife Andrea—a winemaker at Clos Apalta—for dinner at their house near the Viu Manent winery (whose wines are most readily available in California). We chat about travel writing, photography and the madness of Brexit, among other topics, and enjoy several glasses of Apalta’s wines (Apalta is not a MOVI member). The next morning, I moved to the westerly site of Clos Santa Ana, where Italian winemaker, art collector and dog fancier Luiz Allegretti invites me to a long Sunday lunch with his neighbors—one of whom is also a winemaker—and to spend the night in his sprawling colonial home, with its multiple interior patios. That’s a privilege, but Allegretti also has a tasting room for the general public.

At Clos Santa Ana, Luiz Allegretti has an eclectic art collection.

On the road to Pichilemu, there's a shrine to the Argentine folk saint Difunta Correa.

The next morning, I drive west through the coast range toward the beach town of Pichilemu, passing a large roadside shrine to the Difunta Correa (do Argentine surfers leave bottles of water for San Juan’s legendary folk saint?). Once an exclusive playground for the rich—its renovated cultural center is a Francophile structure built by the Anglo-Chilean Agustín Ross Edwards, whose name also graces the handsome waterfront park. The downtown’s seeing signs of rejuvenation, but much of the action has moved south to Punta de Lobos, which attracts a cosmopolitan surf crowd comparable to what comes to northern California during the famous Mavericks competition. Sacred to surfers, the point of the peninsula here is now a protected reserve under the aegis of the Fundación Punta de Lobos.

Pichilemu's Centro Cultural Agustín Ross was originally a casino.

Pichilemu's Punta de Lobos is sacred to surfers.

There, the budget crowd stays at La Sirena Insolente, the newest member of a small hostel chain that has comfy private rooms as well as dorms. At the other end, I stay at the luxury surf lodge Hotel Alaia, at a spacious room with ocean views and a private deck, not to mention its skateboard park, climbing wall, beach bar, a freshwater pool, and surfing lessons. I don’t ride the waves—at Punta de Lobos there are small monuments to surfers who died here—but I dine its stylish restaurant—primarily using locally sourced ingredients.

At Hotel Alaia, all the rooms have easy beach access.

At Punta de Lobos, I also find a cluster of food trucks offering some unexpected treats such as a Peruvian burrito—perhaps the ultimate in fusion cuisine? Unfortunately, when I arrive around noon the following day, the Peruvian’s hasn't yet opened, and I need to return to Santiago. That tantalizing burrito will have to wait.

When I first saw the Peruvian burrito trailer, I'd already had lunch.

¿Un Burrito Peruano?

Two of my favorite cuisines are Mexican and Peruvian—arguably the best of their respective North and South American continents. I rarely visit Mexico any more and haven’t been to Peru (except for Lima’s international airport) in nearly as long, but Mexican food is common throughout the United States and especially California, and Peruvian gastronomy is expanding rapidly out of its homeland. There are only limited choices in my hometown of Oakland, but it’s abundant in Argentina and Chile, the two countries where I travel most.

The Buenos Aires branch of La Mar Cebichería is one of Gastón Acurio's several upscale restaurants.

The evangelist for Peruvian cuisine has been Gastón Acurio, whose Astrid y Gastón and La Mar Cebichería now have branches throughout North and South America. I’ve eaten at La Mar in Buenos Aires, Santiago and San Francisco, and at Astrid y Gastón in Buenos Aires (where La Mar eventually replaced it) and Santiago (where’s it temporarily closed pending a move to new quarters). Both of those, however, are so pricey as to make them an occasional treat as best.

Santiago's Pantaleón II is more modest than La Mar, 

but its excellent mixed ceviche costs a fraction of La Mar's.

Instead, I usually resort to modest but still excellent options such as Buenos Aires’s Status and Santiago’s Pantaleón II. Recently, I dined at La Casita de Barreales, in the Colchagua valley wine capital of Santa Cruz but, in the surfing mecca of Pichilemu, I encountered something completely different in the food trucks at Punta de Lobos.

The Morros at Punta de Lobos mark one of Pichilemu's top surf breaks.

El Burrito Pe overlooks the Morros.

I rarely eat burritos any more but, though some people dismiss their authenticity, I’ve long considered them a form of fusion cooking that we might describe as comida fronteriza—food from the porous US-Mexico border. I wasn’t quite prepared, though, to see an offering of “Peruvian burritos” at El Burrito Pe, on the road just above the landmark Morros (promontories) near the beach’s best breaks.

I can only wait for my next chance.

Unfortunately, when I stopped there I had already eaten lunch, but I spoke with the Peruvian owner and planned to return the next day, before leaving town. Unfortunately, though he said he would open at 1 p.m., there may have been circumstances beyond his control and I finally decided could wait only so long. My double-hybrid burrito with huancaína or rocoto will have to wait until my next visit to Pichi.

Gauchifying the Huaso: an NYT Misidentification

Once a year or so, The New York Times travel section condescends to publish a Latin American issue, devoting its 12 pages to a region that, south of Mexico and parts of the Caribbean, gets barely a mention the rest of the year. Last Sunday’s edition features a photo essay on Santiago’s newly fashionable Barrio Italia, an area that also includes the Museo Frei and Puerto Perú, one of my favorite restaurants in the city (I’m planning a future post about Peruvian food).

It also includes a longer article on Pichilemu, the Chilean surfing capital that's just a short drive from the Colchagua wine district. That’s good as far as it goes, but author Ondine Cohane stumbles when she inexplicably refers to Chilean horsemen as “gauchos” when she attends a local rodeo. “Gaucho” is properly River Plate Spanish (Argentina, Uruguay, Paraguay and Brazil, where it’s gaúcho). It’s also used in southernmost Chilean Patagonia but, in the Chilean heartland, her “gauchos wearing different striped tunics” are in fact huasos dressed in ponchos, and she fails to identify the traditional dance she views as the cueca, the staple of Chilean folklore (as depicted in the 19th-century painting below). It’s not surprising that Cohane, an editor with the Euro-centric Condé Nast Traveler, might oversimplify regional details, but the Times’s own fact-checkers clearly failed here.

Romney Nui

Recently, I wrote a post about Chilean icons in the current US presidential elections that included a New Yorker cartoon caption contest that caricatured the current opposition nominee as the face of the stationary moai of Easter Island (known as Rapa Nui to its Polynesian residents). The link in the previous sentence will take you to three wryly clever reader-submitted captions, with a choice to vote for one. I’ve made my choice and, when the winner is announced next week, we’ll see if other readers agree with me.

Tango by the River - Postponed

As announced earlier, I will give a digital slide lecture on Buenos Aires at Tango by the River in Sacramento, but illness (not mine) has postponed the event. It will now take place Friday, October 26th.

Limited to a maximum of 50 people, the event will also include tango performances; admission costs $10 at the door, or $8 in advance. I have spoken here several times before, and we always sell out, so plan in advance. Signed copies of my Moon Handbooks on Argentina, Buenos Aires, Chile and Patagonia will be available at discount prices.

To the North: Ash-Free Argentina & Chile

After writing three separate posts about the eruption of Volcán Puyehue, which remains on red alert, I’m suffering from volcano fatigue. Since southern Chile and Argentina are lesser winter than summer destinations anyway, I’ll use today’s post to make suggestions about ash-free travel in the northern deserts and moist forests and wetlands of the two countries, where it’s presently possible to make air connections from Buenos Aires and Santiago, where international airports are once again open. The destinations that follow are actually better in winter, when milder temperatures are the rule.

Esteros del Iberá

Perhaps the most underrated destination in all of Argentina, the Iberá marshes of Corrientes province are a cornucopia of subtropical wildlife, where it’s possible to come face-to-face with caimans, capybaras, howler monkeys, marsh deer, and perhaps even a maned wolf - not to mention nearly 350 bird species. Estancia Rincón del Socorro offers expensive luxury tours and accommodations, but nearby Colonia Pellegrini offer alternative services for every budget from shoestring backpackers up.

Cataratas del Iguazú

Unlike Iberá, the Iguazú falls are world-famous, even appearing in commercial cinema epics such as Moonraker (1979), The Mission (1986), and Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull (2008). Recent theme-park transformations have made visiting the falls a less adventurous experience than it once was, but there’s no denying the visual and aural impact of thunderous whitewater that plunges vertically over a basalt escarpment half again as high as Niagara, and more than twice as wide. It’s also a UNESCO World Heritage Site.

Quebrada de Humahuaca

Like Iguazú, the Humahuaca canyon is a UNESCO World Heritage Site, for its imposing natural landscapes, archaeological sites, and an indigenous heritage that recalls the Four Corners area of the southwestern United States. At its highest altitudes, winter nights can get cold, but July and August are warm and dry during the daytime.

Iquique

The capital of Chile’s Tarapacá region, the coastal city of Iquique has a mild dry climate all year - even as the winter solstice approaches, the forecast daytime temperatures for the coming week are in the mid-60s (around 18° C). That may not be warm enough to swim in the chilly Pacific - though wet-suited surfers enjoy big winter waves from storms at sea - but it’s warm enough to enjoy the city’s Victorian architecture, the nearby nitrate ghost towns of Humberstone and Santa Laura (another UNESCO World Heritage Site, pictured above), and the pre-Columbian geoglyphs that cover the hillsides of the Cerros Pintados.

San Pedro de Atacama

The best-known destination in the Atacama desert, San Pedro is a genuine colonial village that’s also become a magnet for travelers ranging from full-moon party-goers to the most selective of those for whom cost is no object - at the all-inclusive Hotel Awasi, for instance, the guest to guide ratio is one to one. Like Iberá, though, San Pedro also offers cheap to moderately priced alternatives for everybody to visit sights such as the frigid but flamingo-filled lakes of the altiplano, the geyser fields at El Tatio, and pre-Columbian ruins at Catarpe and Quitor.

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From the Epicenter: Chile, One Year Later (3)

In fact, the last leg of my journey through post-earthquake Chile took me farther from the epicenter, but not so far that the damage was not palpable. At the town of Curepto, for instance, virtually the entire parish church was covered with corrugated aluminum as it awaits repair, and many buildings were framed with two by fours and other supports to keep them from collapsing.

After leaving Talca, my first overnight was at the British-run Hacienda Laguna Torca near its namesake national park, a lush coastal wetland that’s home to 2,000 black-necked swans. Just inland from the town of Llico, a prime windsurfing site that got hit by the tsunami but is recovering nicely, the Hacienda suffered no serious earthquake damage, but an invasion of salt water affected its olive groves. With time and rain, fresh water is recharging the aquifer.

To the north, thanks to broad sandy beaches and the left break at Punta de Lobos, the town of Pichilemu is one of central Chile’s top seaside resorts and prime surf spots, but that also made it vulnerable to the tsunami. According to Marcel Janssen, the Dutch owner of the Pichilemu Surf Hostal, the tsunami rolled right past the bar (across the street), but the quake itself damaged the walls; it’s since been upgraded into a more stylish beachfront bar, with a deck and heated saltwater tubs for relaxation.

In and around Santa Cruz, though, the devastation was such that, at the time, the irrigation canals in some vineyards literally ran red - with wine. Where the 19th-century parish church stood facing Santa Cruz’s Plaza de Armas, there is now a vacant lot, and many other buildings are still in ruins, even if the remarkable Museo de Colchagua and its adjacent Hotel Santa Cruz Plaza have quickly recovered - the controversial Carlos Cardoén has poured money into the city, but he can’t do everything.

Some of the surrounding communities suffered serious devastation. At nearby Huique, the quake flattened parts of the historic residence of former president Federico Errázuriz Echaurren and knocked over the tower of its adjacent chapel. Other parts of the complex, already in neglect after passing into the hands of a peasant cooperative, are virtually beyond repair. At Apalta’s Bodega Neyen, where I took a tour, several hundreds bottles of premium wine fell off the shelves and shattered on the concrete floor below, but nobody was injured. The remaining stock is now protected by chicken wire that prevents it from falling.

Probably the most seriously affected was the picturesque village of Lolol, where virtually every adobe sustained severe damage and many of them still bear warning tape and spray paint tags that say “danger, total collapse.” The church is still standing, but fenced off and services now take place in an adjacent tent.

That said, the region is on the road to recovery. Amongst the devastation, Cardoén’s Museo Artesanía Lolol is an exceptional crafts museum that’s well worth a detour from Santa Cruz, and most of the wineries on the Ruta del Vino de Colchagua (whose offices appear in the photo at top) are once again open for tours and tasting. When I passed through Santa Cruz, Cardoén’s hotel was booked solid, but I managed a couple nights at the Hotel Terraviña, operated by Danish journalist Anne Sorensen and her Chilean husband.

Surrounded by its own vineyard (once part of the nearby Laura Hartwig winery, which is newly open for tours), the Terraviña opened shortly before the quake and, in its aftermath, found itself part of the relief efforts. Government officials and business travelers helped get it through the first year but, as tourist traffic has recovered, it’s become a hotel again. One of its attractions is that, though it has no restaurant of its own, two of Santa Cruz’s best - the Italian Vino Bello and the Peruvian La Casita de Barreales - are only a short stroll away through the vines.

Desert Waves, Dusty Diamonds & Rocky Greens

In February of this year, Chile’s massive 8.8 Richter scale earthquake made international headlines but only the specific timing was a surprise - like the Pacific Coast of North America, Chile is one of the world’s most seismically active areas. The February event was unique only in its scale - three years ago, for instance, the coastal Atacama Desert town of Tocopilla suffered a little publicized 7.7 quake that destroyed 7,000 homes and, even today, more than 500 families are living in simple shelters known as mediaguas.

When I first visited Tocopilla, in the early 1990s, it was a ramshackle town with a small port and huge thermoelectric energy station that still powers the massive copper works at Chuquicamata, some 130 km to the east. At that time, coastal Ruta 1 from the city of Iquique was only a dusty but scenic gravel road in an area with some of Chile’s most impressive beaches and best surfing, with little or no competition for waves. Southbound, my aging Argentine Peugeot pickup could barely make the steep grade over the hill where the Galleguillos tunnel has now simplified communication between the two cities, which are about 230 km apart. The larger port of Antofagasta is 180 km farther south.

At that time, Tocopilla’s most unexpected site was its downtown baseball stadium where, on a sunny day with a cool breeze off the Pacific, I stopped briefly to watch a team from the local Asociación de Beisbol Tocopilla work out. Despite grand ocean views, the field itself was barely a sandlot - in reality, it was a hard dirt surface on which you wouldn’t want to dive or slide, and you certainly wouldn’t want to crash into the concrete outfield walls while chasing a long fly ball. Nevertheless, baseball (owing its origins to the US presence in the copper mining industry) has been played here since 1928; in 2005, Tocopilla defeated Iquique for the national championship. Other diamonds, such as the one pictured here at the nitrate town of María Elena, are scattered throughout the region.

That was then, and this is now: on my last visit to the city, in December 2008, it was even more ramshackle, and the outfield was where those 500-plus families were still living in their mediaguas. This week, though, Chilean president Sebastián Piñera met local residents and pledged to finish a new hospital and build another thousand houses by next year. Then, perhaps, the Asociación de Béisbol can think about regaining the championship.

Baseball, meanwhile, is not the only unexpected sporting presence in Tocopilla. About 20 km north of the city, at the Tocopilla Golf Club, the “greens” consist of crushed black volcanic rock and the fairways are the brownest around (except for planted, or rather emplaced, plastic palms). The ocean views, though, are hard to equal anywhere this side of California’s Pebble Beach.

Pichilemu's Public Schools To Become "Surf Schools"

With a Pacific coastline that stretches for more than 2,500 miles (over 4,000 kilometers), much of it resembling the state of California and Mexico’s Baja California, Chile makes an ideal destination for surfers. From the desert coast of the Norte Grande, where the cities of Arica and Iquique make the best bases, to the headlands of the Chilean heartland, north of Viña del Mar, there are almost endless options for surfers. Because the community of Chilean surfers is relatively small, the competition for waves is not what it would be in, say, Southern California.

That could change, though, if mayor Roberto Córdoba of Pichilemu - Chile’s almost undisputed surfing capital west of the Colchagua valley wine district about three hours southwest of Santiago - has his way. Pichilemu (whose Punta de Lobos point break appears here) is already home to the Campeonato Nacional de Surf, the national surfing championships, but according to the Santiago Times, the mayor plans to introduce surfing as an elective course in four of the town’s poorest performing schools.

The idea, says Córdoba, is to encourage an activity that has economic potential - there are several surf schools and rental equipment in town - and also to provide a recreational outlet for disadvantaged kids who are otherwise bored and, sometimes, in trouble. That many of these kids could become professional, as the mayor seemed to imply, is doubtful, especially as the cost of equipment, training, and travel is well beyond the means of most of them. Still, the idea of making them participants, rather than just observers, seems worth the effort.