After a few days in Valparaiso it was time to move on. It was only 2 days cycling to San Felipe/Santa Maria. Finally we had arrived. The boxes with panniers, tires and other small materials were already waiting for us there.
But it was a big disappointment when we opened the box with the new panniers. Vaude had sent us the right color, but not the right model! And instead of 2, they had sent 4 panniers… We wanted the model with an extra pouch on the outside which is handy for small things you might need while on the road, like a spare innertube, a knife and chainoil. The new ones Vaude sent us didn’t have that pouch and a different closing system which we find less convenient. So we were not very pleased. But it will have to do. Fortunately, everything does fit.
Yesterday a truck with grapes arrived. They had to go through a machine which separates the grapes from the stems and crushes them. They end up in a big barrel where they stay for a while. Then everything goes into wooden barrels to ripe. It doesn’t come out for about 1,5 years. It was nice to help, learn and see how all of this wine making works. Because there was a student sommelier to have a look around, we had an extensive lunch with a lot of good food and wine. Dinner, also, was very nice with good food and lots of wine.
Tonight we leave this wonderful place. We’re being picked up by people from Santiago who we met on the road. We met and got to talking. They invited us to come visit them if and when we were in the neighborhood and wanted to go to the city. We didn’t plan on going to Santiago, but we can use some more rest and it will probably be nice to visit them and see the city through locals.