Saturday, we got on the bus at 945 to the nearby Aconcagua Valley, at the base of Mt. Aconcagua, near the Argentinean border and I believe the 7th highest mountain in the world. So anyways, yeah, scenery was prettty epic. Our first stop was a local winery, at the heart of the valley, where we took a tour of the grape fields, cask storage facilities, and of course concluding with the inevitable tasting. I purchased a Gran Reserve bottle of Carmenere, a unique type of wine that is only produced in Chile and France, as a special gift. After the winery, we took the bus a short distance to the ranch, which I had been pretty excited about.
Turns out, riding horses in the desert is indeed quite awesome. It obviously took a while to saddle up 25 people especially given that most of them had not ridden horses much if ever, but eventually we all were set up. A couple of the girls in our group were given surly horses, Andreas being the meanest at scoring two kicks on the legs of two of the girls in our group. However, in general, these horses could not have been easier to control and more amiable, they were far more tame then the horses I rode in Costa Rica on my farm in 2007. I mastered my horse fairly quickly, figuring out how to turn, stop, and increase speed with ease. Once we were all acclimated, the four or five cowboys assigned to us led us along the way.
We took off on the street for a while at first, with the caballeros guiding us to the side when cars came along. I cant remember the last time I smiled so much, I was having so much fun. We eventually came to a mountain, and somehow managed to ride it all the way up along switchback trails. I even managed to take a couple pictures while riding the horse, scared for my camera of course. After the initial several hours though, an intense hunger kicked in along with dehydration from too much drinking the night before, not enough sleep, and not eating sufficiently the day before. To make things worse, we didnt end up eating until close to 430, which is a late time for lunch in anyones book I would say.
The vegetarian option was a salad, too, of which I consumed several potatos only (the rice was cold and had mayonaise, it was pretty disgusting). Lack of food and dehydration put me into a fairly bad state, in a shivery type of cold feeling even bundled up. After getting back to Santiago, I felt better though after eating a nice dinner at Pizza Hut. I didnt plan on going out that night, but I realized it was my last Saturday night in Santiago. It reminded me of the awful corny line in The Mask, where Jim Carry goes P - A - R - T - Y? Cuz I gotta!
Haha ouch...
Anyways, it turned out to be a really fun night. We hit a local club called Subterraneo, recommended to Becky as one of the best nights possible in town. It was dead at midnight, but we stuck around especially with 2 for 1 drinks and free entrance. Sure enough, the dance floor filled up around 1 and by 2 the place was bumping. As a group of more then 20, we definitely occupied our own, specific space on the dance floor, and made cutting loose easier knowing you were around 25 friends. I ended up dancing all night, drinking Caiperinhas (a Brazilian version of tequila on the rocks) and then Piscola when they stopped making the former. The lights came on around 530 AM, and I didnt even get to sleep right away, still pumped from the club.
The next morning I didnt want to, but got up at 10 AM for a Thermal Hot Springs visit. They turned out to fairly not entertaining, as they were barely warmer then a regular pool, outside, and although the sun was out it was still winter in Chile. After a bit of freezing, and trying some indoor saunas (equally as lukewarm), we gave up, waited til lunch, and called it a day afterwards. I had a quite interesting kind of layered lasagna type cake, with eggs, cheese, mushrooms and various other tasty ingredients. The day was paid for entirely by the school, so I couldnt complain that much. Got home, got some well needed sleep in preperation for the next day.
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