Yesterday was Valparaiso, Chile. This was our first Ensemble exclusive shore excursion and it was a very nice one. We started with a bus tour of the city which is much like San Francisco. It is built on the many hills that come all the way to the sea. There are many very steep and winding roads along with Victorian era houses and buildings. It looks like a place I’d want to explore a bit more. We then stopped at the Museum Fonk which is about Easter Island. Since that was one of my favorite stops on our World Cruise I really found it interesting. It’s a bit too bad that two tour buses from our ship arrived about 20 minutes ahead of schedule. The museum is quite small and it got very overcrowded but we had just about completed the tour with our museum guide, so we looked at what we especially wanted to see and then boarded the bus and headed for the Casablanca wine valley. We rode through the mountains for about 45 minutes - it looks much like the Rockies near Denver with some palm trees added among the pines. The William Cole winery was really beautiful and although it is a small family ‘high end’ winery it has developed a nice visitor program. We did a short visit to the vines where Carmen (our winery guide) told us about growing grapes and then we visited the cellars for a quick tour and then on to the tasting room. They served three different types of wine for tasting one white and two reds and then we were offered a huge selection of appetizer-type foods - really a full lunch. Afterwards we headed back to the ship - most people napping from the wines.
In the afternoon we had a good folkloric show onboard the ship with a group of local dancers. They presented dances from the four regions of Chile.
As we sailed away from Valparaiso, the swells increased just as the Captain told us they would and the ship has been doing a bit of rock and roll all night and today (Friday) a sea day. We are headed to Isle Robinson Crusoe if the weather and seas hold up. The Captain did tell us that the Amsterdam was here 14 days ago on the World Cruise and had horrible winds and waves and after sailing all the way out to the island bumping all the way along had to miss the stop and then bump its way back to the mainland coast of Chile. I love hearing the Captain talk about the ‘bumps’ as he says boomps, like bump with a long U. We are having a number of whale sightings and some seals and sea lions.
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