London, Paris, Talca!

After our summer stay at the lovely hostel "Casa Chueca" in Talca we had to plan a return trip to share the experience with our good friends Margaret and Clayton.

Day 1
We arrived on a beautiful sunny afternoon in Talca, a relief after such gray and dreary weather back in Vina. Margaret, JoAnna and I enjoyed a lazy day which included a relaxing walk in the countryside and an afternoon bottle of Chile's finest on the deck at the hostel.

Fall colors in full effect on our afternoon stroll in the campo.


Picture perfect flowers outside our room.



Day 2 - On friday we decided to rent bikes and head for a ride along the region's "ruta del vino."


We made our way to a local colonial house and former winery which has been converted in to a religious artifacts museum. Our tour book eluded to the fact that it has some strange displays and they were correct. The show stealer was a life-sized replica of the last supper complete with full sized wooden carved characters. To top it off they played creepy recordings of some rather macabre biblical passages. (something to the effect of "follow me or you will be left to dry in the desert and have your bones picked dry by the vultures")... errrrr yeah it was weird. Regardless it is a neat building and some of the displays were quite interesting.

The last supper.... very realistic and soooooo creepy.


Jo and I outside the museum.


Varieties of grapes on display in the impressive gardens out back.


Margaret and I posing behind the large Jars that were used for wine making.


They had a pretty cool selection of artisan ceramics on display.


The big event on Friday was the grand opening of Casa Chueca's own Divino, a 200 year old refurbished building where they offer wine tastings from local wineries. Although we are far from wine snobs we got to act like we were as we enjoyed a selection of 5 region wines and chit-chatted with a variety of other guests from far off lands such as Germany and the UK.

Wine tasting at the new Divino room at Casa Chueca.


Day 3
Clayton arrived late Friday night and the following morning we rented a big truck from the hostel and headed a few hours north east to the regions famous Radal Siete Tazas were we did some day hiking and enjoyed the views of the very Oregonesque series of waterfalls which are the parks namesakes.



That night at the hostel we enjoyed another sampling of regional wines and chatted it up with hostel guests and newfound friends. We also enjoyed a excellent vegetarian dinner prepared by Hostel staff.

Here we are relaxing on the patio.. a panoramic picture.


On sunday we enjoyed a lazy afternoon hanging around and reading in the sun. Here I am on one of their many hammocks. It's a hard life isn't it?


Fellow hosteler Kevin from the UK who is living near Vina was kind enough to offer us a ride home and spare us the unpleasant 5 hour bus ride. Not a bad way to end the trip!