 Unfortunately for me, the epic New Year party and the following hours of sitting in the cold night air took their toll on my body, and I spent the next week in bed with flu, shivering, aching and generally looking like a warmed up corpse. For this reason, the last week of our time in Chile was pretty uneventful (which definitely doesn't make for a fun post!). Joe carried on his research in the office alone and put together a presentation, and by the end of the week I was just enough recovered to present my findings as well. Overall our time at Odfjell was unique and very interesting. The job was enjoyable, the estate was beautiful and the horses were just the highlight of everything. In hindsight, we think hiring a car would have been a good option, just to allow us to get off the vineyard without having to rely solely on Uber (which was not easy). We made it into Santiago for a last weekend, walking back around the sights, picking up some last minute essentials and generally relaxing (including indulging in a pizza at Patio Bellavista).
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 In our wisdom/foolishness, we made an impromptu decision to travel to the epic NYE celebrations at Valparaiso on Chile's Pacific Coast. After a quick Google search it was obvious that we could not afford to stay the night in the city - most places had a three night minimum stay policy and beds in 10 person dorms that would have cost £10 a night being sold at £40-£60. With that we decided to pull an all nighter, arriving on Sunday morning, taking in the sights, staying up for the firework display and street parties before getting the first bus back on the 1st of January.
We got up at 6:30am on New Year's Eve and immediately struggled to find an uber to take us to the bus stop, to take us to the metro system, to get us to the bus terminal. It was a slightly stressful 30 minutes as we realised we couldn't even get a taxi from the vineyard and that we were rapidly running out of time to make the journey to the station. In the end, we got very lucky, as an uber was dropping someone else off nearby and we finally made it with time to spare. Acutely aware that we haven't posted an update for this whole year (ha), we thought this would be the perfect opportunity to catch-up on what we've been up to in Chile.  Given that we have been working full time hours in a place that isn't exactly accessible by public transport, our main time for exploring comes at the weekends when we can spare the hour and a half it takes to get into central Santiago. Our first weekend saw a whistle stop tour of the main sights of the city, including lunch at the tourist hotspot Patio Bellavista (with the addition of one of those ice cream rolls where a man hacked at milk on a frozen plate until he had managed to make a delicious lemon, basil and mint creation). We wandered up to San Cristobal hill (where the famous funicular was closed due to ongoing maintenance!) and made our way to South America's tallest building, the Costanera Center, which houses a 6 level shopping mall of epic proportions. This was closely followed by a quiet Christmas as we baked in the 33 degree heat and found ourselves longing for a turkey dinner with all the trimmings.
December the 25th marks actually quite a few milestones for us. It is our first Christmas spent together, the first one away from our families and the first in a foreign country. Not to mention our first warm festive period (it's been around 32 degrees here!) The plan is to avoid the warming comfort food of a UK banquet, and skip straight to the fresh bread, cured meats and cheeses that are favoured by the Mediterraneans. Throw in some good old fashioned Christmas telly courtesy of iplayer and a bottle of Odfjell red, and we're set for our holidays to be very happy indeed! We would also like to take this opportunity to wish all our friends and family a very Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!   Some people may be wondering what exactly we're doing with our time over the festive period on a vineyard in Chile. The answer is a rather fun internship working in the offices at Odfjell. Joe is spending his time working with the Sales and Distribution team, compiling pricing data and assisting with analysis on the winery's main markets and competitors. Alice is designing and running a project for the Marketing and Hospitality Manager, looking to set up walking and biking trails across the estate for potential visitors. The next three weeks are being spent in the office, learning about the wine industry, analysing Chilean export data and of course sampling some of the products (all in the name of research, obviously...)  Having in arrived in Chile, it is immediately obvious that the country is very very different to Bolivia. Driving down the motorways flanked by detached houses in an air conditioned taxi (with seat belts!), you'd be forgiven for mistaking Santiago for somewhere in the USA. The closest supermarket is basically a Walmart, Uber is very active here and the city has its own fully developed metro service. Stepping off the plane is almost stepping into another world. We were warned about culture shock prior to arriving in Bolivia, but we hadn't quite anticipated having it the other way around.  After a painless 40 minute taxi ride from the airport, we made our way to the vineyard and winery that will be our home for the next 4 weeks. The Odfjell Vineyard in the Maipo Valley is an 85 hectare farm, complete with state of the art underground gravity flow production facility and a host of beautiful Norwegian fjord horses (which they breed meaning adorable foals!).
The vineyard was founded and continues to be run by a family of Norwegian armadors (ship owners) - hence the fjord horses - and is a stunningly beautiful place to be. We are lucky enough to be staying directly on the estate in an apartment and have been encouraged to walk and explore the extensive grounds. Something tells us we're going to have a very lovely time in Chile... |
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Hi! We're Alice and Joseph, currently on a year long RTW trip :) Archives
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