Vineyards and Mountains

We woke up to one of the best breakfast spreads and filled ourselves up. Between the air conditioning, WiFi router right outside our bedroom and the room, we can't really complain much about Rancagua. Sure there is nothing to see in the town, but it is central enough to see some of the main wineries in the country.

See, not visit
Knowing that the majority of vineyards are on the East side of Route 5, we decided to head West towards Isla de Maipo.

Winery 1: TerraMater - semi-fail. They only do tastings on Saturdays, but we did pick up some olive oil they produced.

Winery 2: Santa Ema - fail
Winery 3: De Martino - fail
Winery 4: Viña Tarapacá - fail. And this was after I gleaned off the website that they do lunches. AND we had trouble finding, driving in circles, since the map didn't orient itself with Isla de Maipo.

Winery 5: Undurraga - fail. To be honest we didn't even locate the winery, and at this point we weren't even trying. We were ready to find some food and get onward to our accommodations.

Winery 6: Portal del Alto (I think, at this point my memory wasn't sharp for little-known wineries) - fail
Winery 7: Santa Rita - semi-success. Not realising that it was 3:30pm, we pulled in for lunch...only to negotiate what we could eat, since the oven was turned off. Still, the food was good and I sampled a couple of their premium wines.

Chilean directions
While the signage has been better here than in Argentina wine country, they seem to place the minimum number of signs. They also seem to assume that you are coming from Santiago, and give directions and sign when coming on from that direction.

For example, finding the reception of our accommodations was easy. Finding our hostel - which was four-ish blocks over - wasn't as easy, since its sign was facing away from us. Of course this defies logic, considering all guests will have to go to the main reception before backtracking towards the hostel and should have the sign point towards them.

This also explains why some of the wineries have been harder to locate, (if locating at all). Wineries should realise that they are not the only one being visited that day, so the orientation may not be from the exact entrance off the main route. On maps they really should provide directions based on markers around the winery, so you could locate it from multiple directions.

Horses
While cars are very prevalent here, it is also very common to find horses - sometimes with a carriage - going down the streets. While they may be expected in small towns, we have even found them in larger places like Santa Cruz, Talca, and the like. Thankfully they aren't on the Autopistas, and their only hazard is left behind on the road.

Maipo Canyon
Our destination was back into the mountains, staying in the Maipo canyon. Leaving around the mountainside, it is quite remote. The mountains look a bit like Grand Canyon with its striations, and the weather gets quite hot during the day. Thankfully, it also cools off quite a bit at night.

Dog party
We fell asleep to the rowdiest bunch of dogs I've ever encountered. You may here a dog bark here or there, even setting off other dogs in the neighbourhood. With this, imagine dogs having a party, drinking lots. They get loud, and you hear the mass of them. Now maybe the canyon is making them louder or more plentiful than it sounds. Still, we'll think of the lot feasting on some great roadkill, making themselves fat.

Total KMs traveled to date: Over 2,800 km