Life from Behind the Visor: Our first taste of wine country.

Dec 27 Dichato to Lolol

Dining out is one of the things we do on the road every day, sometimes it is a fantastic experience other times it is a gamble. When we have the facilities in the room to cook a little something ourselves it is a nice change. This morning we cook up some eggs and toast along with our coffee, fresh tomatoes and avocado.

The coast just north of Dichato is rocky and craggy with scattered little sand spots for the locals to go swimming. Brenda spotted an interesting cavern that appears to have been formed in solid rock. Enter on the beach side and exit into the ocean.

We zig zag north and the scenery ranges from coastline to farmland to forests and logging. There must be a well developed program for reforestation as most of the mature trees are in rows indicating that they would have been planted that way at least 20yrs ago. The farming on the other hand seems to be a bit less advanced in some spots. We see sheaves in more than one field, it took a minute for me to realize what they were. Some were standing upright in typical fashion, others were laying on their sides.

Some serious logging equipment

After a rather crazy dirt road over the coastal mountains we came across a salt farm. There were pools of water being reduced down leaving the salt for harvest, it doesn’t get any more organic than that.

We should be inland by the end of today, Lolol to be exact, which will land us in the heart of wine country and within a couple of hours of Santiago. We researched a couple of wineries that have tours and figure this would be a good time check that off the list. There is also an olive oil facility tour at one of the wineries so we decide that would be the best one to see. Lolol is not a very big place but according to our research there should be a couple of hotels to choose from. The information is outdated and the only places in town are geared to farm workers and not tourists, plus we could not even find them, we found out about them later from the hostess of the bed and breakfast we found.

The B&B was not actually in town, we had decided that we would ride towards Santiago in hopes of finding something along the highway. That is exactly what happened and we only went 4 km. "B&B La Casona de Lolol" is owned and operated by Sandra, a wonderful person who, after being downsized from Apple, decided to return to Chile and start fresh. She found a nice piece of land then set to building her home and B&B. She used tradition adobe construction so the rooms are cool in the summer and easy to heat in the winter. Modern touches with antique style adorn the windows and doors with latches instead of door knobs, open beam ceilings, North American sized beds finished with top quality linens all make for a very comfy night. She chose the adobe style because of its resistance to earth-quakes, the 2010 earthquake flattened most of Lolol and evidence of the damage is still visible throughout town.

The view from our window, vineyards and grain fields.

Our wine tour the next day turned into a big bust, the English tour did not operate until late in the day, the olive plant required 48hrs notice and we did not plan on staying for 2 more days. We did manage to sneak into one room and get the following pictures.

The saving grace was that the Automobile Museum at the winery was open and we enjoyed that instead of tasting wine and eating olives. The car collection is mostly the vineyard owner’s private collection with a few cars donated for display purposes by other collectors in the area and a few celebrities.