Full Transcript for ep 13 the golden chile

on the western coast of the world's longest country where Rapa Nui or Easter Island as it's known is the land of 1000 Simon Moai. So those those hand carved stone statues that you see in pictures or whatever, that's that island Rapa Nui as it's known. And lastly, more than 18 million people live here. But 40% of them live in the capital of Santiago, which I thought was very interesting. I learned that when we had gotten here you know, nearly I would say 19 million people for half of them almost half of them to live in San Diego. But you know, you go other places in the country and never do other than go to put down a Patagonia not once did I feel like I was in some sort of, you know, dry desert or anything like that. So Santiago again, you know, one of my favorite places in the world, surrounded by the snowcap Andes Mountains and Chilean Coast Range. It's rich with a lot of Trumps San Diego, this is a is a great city. I mean, he reminds me a lot of a lot of different other places that you've gone to say like a little bit of San Francisco because, you know, you have that Spanish architect can influence you. Reminds me a little bit of, you know, a pointless holidays reminds me a little bit of San Juan, Puerto Rico reminds me a lot of different places. But it's it's a lot of fun. It's a beautiful city. But just like any other city you go to in the world, there's nice brush, there's nicer parts, there are some parts that aren't as nice. I not once did, I feel that I was in any sort of danger, and I pretty much covered the entire town, but you're absolutely gonna love it. It's cosmopolitan. It's exciting, it's adventurous. It's entertaining. There's a lot of different things to do here. And you know, one of the things I learned almost immediately it was it is not it was wasn't even close to being as crappy, or whatever it is, as people made it out to be. It's just a beautiful city. You know, it's warm, it's bright, it's got a Mediterranean field reminds me very much, you know, California wine country. You know, there's lots of valleys and mountains here. Plenty of activities for anybody who wants to do just about anything. It's got a great gastronomical industry here with wineries and restaurants. And we're gonna talk a ton about that later on, but the city was founded as Santiago del nuevo extreme, or Santiago, the new frontier in 1541 by Spanish conquistador Pedro de Valdivia. The area was inhabited by the punchy Indians who were placed into the role of Spanish settlers. And when you look around greater Santiago, you'll notice many of the architectural remnants from the colonial era still in place here. You look at places like the Palace of the Governors, the Metropolitan Cathedral, the meant the constantly Tribunal. The churches is a series of three churches here, that this area is known for the churches of San Francisco. The Santa Domingo does recollective Franciscana and the Ladner said, there's definitely no shortage of incredible 19th century architecture here. You look at Palazzo, his senior during the late 1800s Chile experience this massive boom in industries like copper silver nitrate, and because of that, a lot of the families that participated in those industries, you made a lot of millionaires, yeah, lots and lots of lots of wealthy at the time. One of them was Luis Cassia. And his wife is adore. They built this palace at The Palazzo Casino. And on after he died, his wife, September 18 18th, at Zhu inaugurated the palace. So today it's one of the most renowned museums in all of South America, specifically here in Chile. But you know, the casino family had, you know, again made all of their money in silver, and along with other wealthy families that were involved in, in mining or whatever, you know, they were charged with dividing up the entire sector in the mid 1800s. So a lot of these families including casinos family built a number of these palaces, you know, they got to do a lot of fantastic things they did. They built a palace, the Parco Higgins, the X Park casino, they built Park the alota that was destroyed in 1960 earthquake, they build popular Vineya casino moku now Christina McCool was one of my favorite wineries. We'll slip into that one later on. But you know, the wealth that was created here, built some of his a lot of this architecture that still sits here today when you guys come here. I really can't wait for you to see it. But see, Santiago is also known. Just like any other city having some great neighborhoods. There's Bella Vista. It's like New York City. It's a little bohemian. It's part of town. It never sleeps. Lots of nightlife. Endless collection of restaurants and pubs. Best place to go hang out. You want a great night in a town. There's Providence here. That's home to San Diego, San Diego's business community here. You can climb up to San Cristobal Hill. You could do a bike tour up there. You can walk up there you can hike up there. You can look out over the city. There's borough Italia, great coffee shops there. Also antique shops, local Chalayan food, lots of Italian restaurant, Italian restaurants, their restaurants and basically all over the world. lot great live music, interior design shops, great things for you to go places for you to shop and buy things or home bars and lots of things like that. It's also known for having a tunnel bicycles. So I guess it's a little bit of that. A little bit of that Starbucks culture that's here. They have San Hatton get it. San Diego's version of Manhattan. It's where all the size skyscrapers are here in town. Capitals most exclusive restaurants are here. largest shopping malls are here. This part of town. Lots of local excusable Tietze here to shopping here. It's phenomenal. I mean, you can buy pretty much anything you want whether designer, local What have you been to several cranch christobel That's the largest natural urban area in the city. Best place for great panoramic views and city on parallel to some of

the more amazing and beautiful neighborhoods and sites here in Santiago. It's also home on bike astronomic Sr. Some of your artists and are better local fancier midscale nicer restaurants are here. But you know the food here is great. I think one of the reasons that makes it so great here is no for a country that so long and narrow. It produces a lot of incredible, you know, food products here and some more notable than others. One this seafood. You know, they have the Pacific Ocean that's here, and they get a lot of things that I've never heard of even as my years as a chef, I've never tasted until I got here. You know, you have things like abalone, Chilean salmon mussels, balls, Covina Chilean crab conquer eel. The first time I had Congo eel, was here in Chile, barnacles and lots of different things. But they also have some traditional dishes that are Chilean, whether it be by birth or by adoption that Chile is known for. There's locals coming and ESA, which is abalone topped with mayonnaise and some spices. This acabo Caswell actually looked up. One of my favorite dishes is this thick piping hot stew of mussels and pumpkin and cabbage, potatoes and garlic, hot peppers got oregano into coriander. Great, great dish. One of my other favorites is Doritos how vapor that Eldar poor, I should say the green going beef comes out now and then also was cooked with garlic and white wine, but looking into sausage. Incredible, incredible, incredible foods. Like I said the first time I hit Congress Hill was here. One of my favorite restaurants too. That does nothing but I may have some lamb items here too. But there's a place called la calma on the avenue to wave, the wave of constant air that's here in town. Some of the best ocean fare of any place I've been in the world. Lots of fresh fish. Lots of things. Again, I've never heard of like chili and silverside it's a small smelt like fish with a mild flavor. Chilean pink clamps. These I love to eat on a half shot raw. They taste like Twizzlers. Super sweet with a very unique, brainy sort of intoxicating flavor. limpets which are sea snails, they have those here. But you know, there's a lot of different things that are indigenous here to Chile, not to seafood. like corn, for example. Long before the Spaniards took hold of the country, Chile grew an abundance of corn, what they call the DUA. So from Copiapo in the north, to Chile in the south, chocolate chili now as it's known here are the crops. In fact, corn was worshipped by the ancient, the ancient Incas. In fact, it was so important that their chief, who many believed to be the descendant of the gods planted the first corn seeds every year to inaugurate the growing season. So it was incredibly popular crop here. But Chilean Chilean cultivation methods are produced lots of amazing many different varieties, which are, you know, they're distinguishable by colors and things of that nature. There was black maize, and it comes about another name that I wouldn't

even I wouldn't even begin to try to pronounce so. There was a Redmi it's called quelli Hua pgmo, which is a multicolored corn calkin. Two was a black and white maize Gillio was the flour maize. There was mellow mallet Hua was white maize, but from all these varieties, or races of corn, as I learned, was categorized by some believe it or not. I guess it just goes to show that even in corn, you can't escape certain things. Jesus Christ racist. Yeah, okay. A lot of these different mazes were used to make a number of different indigenous dishes. Here in Chile. Human Anita is one soy corn. Chocolate is mixed in with fresh ground maize kernels, and mixed with cacao. So it's a piece it gets a little silky. So they add in a little bit of lard, their salt and, and or sugar. And, you know, according to whatever taste profile they're looking for, you know, it's divided up into smaller pieces, and each one is wrapped in shucks a maze of the from the years himself. So it's tied in these little small sachets, and then it's finally cooked in boiling water. So think of it as it sounds like tamales, but it's not. Human eaters are made from fresh maids, whereas tamales amazing nixtamal. Next Himalaya is corn, meaning that they take in a corn and they've added something to it like ly to peel the skins off the corn and then it gets steamed and washed and clean. And then it's pulverized and turns into flour to make whatever they're going to make with it. So it is a little bit different. Right now, here in the States to American football playoffs are underway, and I would give my right arm for a bowl of Chile's most highly regarded dishes. Pasta for chocolate. So it originally, its many would say it began as Peru's national dish. But it's also popular in Bolivia, Argentina, I should say throughout all of South America. But pastel the Chocos Chilean corn pie, and it's made with lots of fresh maize, ground beef, black olives, onions, hard boiled eggs. It's got a corn flour dough on the top, the choclo. And sometimes a lots of versions, they vary, I guess as you go from household, a household, country to country, if you're lucky, you can still find any year because I've had it on on restaurant menus here. And it's incredible. It's rich, it's anxious. It's just absolutely amazing. But that fresh corn mix with all those spices and things like that, it is absolutely just unforgettable. It's got this sort of creamy center, it's got this golden caramelized top to it. Again, another dish that believe was prepared by the coin guide to Ireland, the corndog cooks would take fresh corn, and they would prepare it in such a way as you're impressed accord God and they would do some different preparations with it, you know, throughout the year, based upon whatever's available. Anthropologists also believe that the Spanish conquerors were seeking a meal that was reminiscent of their own homeland should they made a dish that they made particularly this dish, pastel to choco to satisfy,

you know, their tastes are one and a half something that's, you know, reminding them back home. But the greater Sanji de Santiago region, I think is some of the most fun, exciting and picturesque of all South America. Now taking drives up into the hills. It looked back over the city. Lots of fun stuff to do. I've gone on our long coastal drives up stop periodically along the way of taking pictures. You know, you breathe in that fresh air from the Pacific Ocean. But you know, I gotta tell you one of my absolute favorite things to do on my coaster ride and I can't do is visit the sister villages of Valparaiso and Bini Del Mar. So, Valparaiso is a very important Giulia port city on the Pacific coast. So it's known for having the steep panoramic ridges. These colorful clifftop homes Chilean poet Pablo Neruda is the State LA LA Sebastiana is here is now in museum. I mentioned earlier that the city was rife with all of this 19th century architectural influence. And you'll see a lot of that, here in Valparaiso, it's on full display, especially if you're downtown at the Plaza Sotomayor, you'll see by artist is lasting cultural presence of all European migrants that flocked here, you know, in the earliest period, they left behind a lot of you know, their style, and whatever in just in architecture and art, and just the overall view of everything that you see here. And it's just incredible. So if operate, so is also a UNESCO World Heritage Site. When a foreign country, by the way, is the best place to bring in a new year. They did a fireworks display that rivaled anything that you know, London, Paris, Chicago, New York, anybody could do up on a leg grade Concepcion hills. One of my other things I like to do is take the funiculars, which the cable operated hillside rail cars, you'll get to see some of the city and some of the towns and villages I got over the water. The El Peral funicular rolls down Yugoslavia Bulevar. And you'll see the baba reach a palace, which is home to the Municipal Museum of Fine Arts. There's a lot to see and do along there. From the cars. Over on Monster legal Street. There's the La Santa Cruz Lutheran Church which go inside again you know you guys listen to the podcast before you know I have it. Thankfully, these beautiful ornate churches, and this will definitely not disappoint. You can track up to Bella Vista Hill. You'll get very intimate views of Valparaiso Bay and the city. If you plan on taking the Cordillera funicular, you'll actually get to see the first astronomical observatory. As beautiful as Valparaiso is you know, it's it's one of these places I think that you know, of course, you get a lot of tourists here, but it no matter how many tourists Come here. It always has his local feel. You know, you can walk everywhere. It's pretty safe. Lots of pubs and taverns and bars, and restaurants and shops. It's very, very walkable along the water down to the port. You go to the marina and see some of the ships roll in and see some of the boats that are down there. If you Lola hungry while you're there, try Pippin. Kaluga is at the mano a mano gene and Burger Bar. Super cool place. Also try to share the Patagonian lamb. This guy, the lamb guanaco, sausage, potatoes, caramelized onions, with the egg on top, great food, great place to eat. Lots of places to eat down there. There is no shortage of great food here in Valparaiso. But down the hill and up the coast a little bit, is the sister city of Vina del Mar. And it's incredible, equally is incredible. I don't think there's a more beautiful coastline, then being in Del Mar. And that thinks about that because I live in San Diego. So Vineya tomar is a garden city. So it's great for like, lots of outdoor sports and, you know, recreation is shot to green grass, a little bit inland warm. Some of the best cuisine I think is in all Chile, warm, sandy beaches, best place for people watching Love strolling up and down the streets, to see some of the heritage sites. There's lots of castles and mansions here of some of the wealthy families that live here before the glamorous municipal Casino. is right up the road. He is right here in Vina del Mar, the Vina del Mar Song Festival is coming up that's held here every year. That's a massive, massive global event. Check that out. Great place for nightlife. A lot of people come hang out here. Lots of places do live music. There'll be lots of big name and up and coming artists that come here on a regular basis to do some concerts in and performance, some of the restaurants. So it's a fantastic place to just come hang out and chill. And I think he got to love it here. So the next place I want to take you guys to is, if you haven't don't know it already, Chile is one of the most one of the largest and most productive wine regions in all of the world. There's a number of wine producing valleys here. One of my particular favorites I'll take you to today is the Maple Valley, which is actually the birthplace of Chile's wine production. The wines that come from here I think are some of the most underappreciated highly, incredibly delicious, tasty, very well made. A lot of the wineries here have been around for a very long time, some hundreds of years. But the maple region produces some of, I think some of the most approachable, flavorful and affordable wines that are on the market. The wineries have grown quite a bit in popularity over the years. There's a number of reasons why. One, you know, the terroir, you're always people always mentioned that. Simply put, you know, to the east bay of the Andes Mountains, to the west here to Pacific Ocean. In the north is Yatta comma desert, and the in the south is Patagonia. So what happens at all of those gravitational forces just create this terroir that's that has all these microclimates and produces wine grapes that are both red and white, and sparkling and what have you. There are sweet, flavorful, well balanced, as good as any Bordeaux that you'll

get from France. Anything you'll get from Italy, Barolos or what have you. I think the wines here do equally as well. I also mentioned in one of our previous podcasts, the episode we did on Argentina, Argentina also made some fantastic wines. But one of my favorite wineries here that I always visit when I come to town this century. So Santa Rita winery is up in the alto, the foots up the outfield young. It's a winery that said that. It's on a site. It's this incredible, incredible, idyllic natural setting. It produces Cabernet, mellow, Malbec, and other grapes. It's been around since 1880. Santa Rita was actually the first winery here in Chile to plant French grapes in his rich soil. He also make one of my absolute favorite wines of all time, which is carbon air, which is a French grape that comes from the main rock region of France and Bordeaux. It's generally used to make these deep, full body rich, rich wines. Think of it as a Cabernet, but what the hell a lot more personality or maybe a reds infidel. That's not quite as sweet but still has good great solid fruit structure. And Santa Rita is versions that they make here. Absolutely fantastic. When you come to the winery, dip this estate is just, it's expansive, it's beautiful. You will spend as much time walking around taking any sides taking pictures or whatever. Then you will do Oh did you do you know, tastings him in a while you're going on tours of the winery itself. There's a beautiful hotel that's here on site. The Hotel Casa rial. It was originally served as a summerhouse of the founders at the vineyard. But the building has since been restored. And I think it was the mid 1990s. They converted into a hotel, you go inside and there are these amazing, off to the side, these parlors and all these dining rooms and really swanky and funky cool lounges it offers you really can't there's no such thing as a bad view of the state from the hotel because you can see just about everything from here. There's some cafes and restaurants inside, you can have one of the menus that's been specially created by one of the chefs. Or you can do a specially curated selection of their wine to one of their fine dining rooms, that everything in the food in one matches up. Fantastic. In such a great way that is such a memorable, memorable experience. I do recommend both options shutting the cafes here, you can just have a nice meal and grab a glass of wine and head out on the veranda and just, you know, watch the world go by. Or you can get a little bit more involved and go for more of a culinary adventure. On the inside. You know either way, you will not be disappointed. I guarantee you. The winery offers a number of different types of tours does your typical classic tour. There's a tour where you can sort of go out on your own business and walk around in certain areas and they kind of guide you where you can go. But you'll look at wine grapes being grown, you'll watch some of the team members during grafting and doing some samples where they do some clippings of the wine. So that tests how the grapes are gonna fare out in a few months when they work when they're harvested. You can also do here at sentry, they do this foot powered bar card. So this imagine you and say you know 10 Friends, all 10 of you on this card, and you're all pedaling. And there's a table in the middle and it just takes you all over the winery. And it's a full bar. It stocked with wine and champagne and whatever else, but it also has a bunch of other things that you can drink. It's a lot of fun. Definitely do it. You're gonna love it. Just not far from here is one of my other favorite wineries, which is casino McCool casino was started back in 1856. And for more than 160 years now, almost as long as that may be slightly longer than Santa Rita. They have this reputation of producing some more award winning wines that big of any winery here in Chile. Next to Santa Rita. It's got just these amazing, amazing wineries in grapes that are up here. It's a combination of a number of different wineries that all precede them are cool. But this is a winery just got such a rich, rich history. It was actually the first winery that was run by one of the first women entrepreneurs on the entire continent. So is it Dora? Go Yeah, in that chair. After the death of Louis casino, she took over the management of the winery, becoming one of the first women entrepreneurs on the continent to run a winery. And she's teaching visionary innovation management skills. She had an engineering background, which is pretty great because what she did was when she took over, she revolutionized their production methods and standardize their production values. did take a lot of effort taken a lot of steps to make the winery safer working conditions, better working conditions for the workers. She started bringing in grapes from the Polyak region of France, bringing in different grapes like Riesling, tomato sauce, and doing these graphics and growing and producing different wines that a lot of wineries in this region weren't used to making. And so she spearheaded a lot of that. So Cassia McCool has always enjoyed this reputation of being one of these leading cutting edge wine wineries in all of South America. So today, you know they produce I would say in the ballpark of some 80 different wines. Some of them are super expensive and fantastic. And some of them are very affordable eight nine $10 A bottle but I've had many if not all of their wines over the years and I have never had a bad bottle of wine for casino my my cool. Some of the favorites of mine is the Isidoros Sylviane GRI which is super nice little bit of sweetness. Melani notes to it. The Isidor Rosae. The gota de Luna are one of my other favorites. But here again, another super cool winery, a lot of fun, beautiful setting up here. Again, you could do tours here of any kind, you could do a walking tour, you could do a guided tour, or you could do a private

tour, you can rent a bicycle and go out on your own and ride around and vineyards. If you want to you can get involved and get your hands dirty, and participate in making wine, which is a lot of fun with a lot of wineries up here do. But if you get a chance to come up here, get out and see some of the other wineries in other parts of the valleys. And North and South. You know, if you came to Chile, and just did a wine tour, you know, muster same way you would go to, you know, Sonoma or Napa or go to the Finger Lakes in New York or, you know, go to Willamette in Oregon, you could come here and spent days visiting wineries and visiting the countryside. When you drive around, I said I've said it before, it reminds me so much a Sonoma or Napa California wine region. Because with all the trees and all the homes that are up here, it's a fantastic place to come to just hang out. If you're not if you don't want to go to wineries or you just want to take a break from wineries. You can come here anywhere in the Maple Valley or drive up and down the highway. Go north, south, east or west, you'll run into other wineries and other winery regions. You know, just north of Maipo is valley the San Antonio and to the south, there's disco Chaga. There's mochi goo, there's lolol. There's a number of different regions here that you can come. But it's it's a great place to just come and visit. You're only about an hour, a little bit more so from downtown Santiago, Valparaiso, whatever. So it's easy to get here. It's a fun place to come. There's some great restaurants here. There's lots of great things to do. So it's a fun place to come hang out, and just get away from the city if you'd like to. But before our trip comes to an end, there's one last spot I want to take you guys to and that's the furthest southern point of in Chile, which is Chilean Patagonia. So the region covers about 400,000 square miles. And it's fast. I mean, it is the vast southernmost tip of all of South America. It's shared by Argentina and Chile, with the Andes Mountains as the dividing line. So the Argentine side feet features their steps, there's grasslands, deserts, and the Chilean side has glacial fjords. This temperate rainforest over here, there's different bodies of water all over the all over the entire region. So you can do everything from whalewatching to dolphin watching, to jet skiing to mountain climbing. Volcanoes what have you pretty much everything is here. It's definitely a place a part of the country that is for the outdoors people per se. So if you're a hiker, a trekker love camping, things like that. This is a place that you want to be it's amazing here, it seems when you get here it seems like you're at the very end of the year. You mean there's just like you look out past it and there's nothing just nothing about watered whatever it you know, it's you have all these pioneer towns and villages that are here and you can soak in the history of like, of all the cattle ranching,

Patagonian gauchos, see their lifestyle. You could you can get out and walk you can go by car. You could ride along the Carretera Austral, you can bike alumni, you can walk along that dish tours that come down here to take you beauty entire experience. But it's the very best of Northern Patagonia. You know, if you want a great chick trekking experience, that you can head out over to Torres del Paine. As far as his Hills is waterfalls, there's lakes, you get these really intimate and privileged views and a southern eight fields that are like, you know, the best way I could describe it is it doesn't even get a superhero people. That episode of Superman when they take you to Superman's home with all the ice crystals and whatever. It almost seems like that here, you know if I can kind of draw that connection for you if that makes any sense. But it's beautiful. It's it that the weather here you'll get anything from hot, to cold, to freezing to windblown sometimes all in the same day, sometimes on the same hour. But you can get here and you'll be able to experience all of that. You could get here by you could do plane and come by ferry for Punta Arenas, your cross over the streets of Magellan. That's pretty cool. Again, as we you'll get to see dolphins and penguins, you know, incidentally, penguins don't just Live in here in Patagonia. benefactors scattered all throughout the entire countryside. There's some 12,000 mating pairs of penguins here in Chile. So just think about that for a second. So but they're not just here, down in the southern end. This is a place that, you know, it takes the adventurous side of you, you know, it's not definitely not for the faint of heart. You know, you don't necessarily always have to be a mountain climber or a trekker to get here, but it's definitely for outdoors people. But there are some resorts and lots of things here to occupy you if you're not one of those people. There are some resorts here that there's some Eco tourism resorts here that have amazing food. There's some culinary tours here, that things that are going on. So you come down here, there's something for everyone, not just the adventurous but somebody that wants adventure in their travel. But when you get here and find adventure to whatever Tiger adventure you're looking for, you can certainly find that here. This again is, you know, one of my favorite places I've ever visited. I've always recommend Chile as a starting point for my friends when I tell them as you know, as an introduction to South American travel. Here in this country, you have everything you know, from the Atacama Desert all the way down to Patagonia. Everything in between you have all these valleys. You have Easter Island that's here. You have Santiago, Valparaiso, and Vina del Mar. The people here are absolutely amazing. When I think about well, all my friends told me and everyone told me about the reason why I shouldn't come here. That is not cosmopolitan has nothing to do here. That's an absolute just lie. There is so much stuff to do here. And it's so much fun. I guarantee you, this is going to be a trip that you take that you're going to be telling people about for a very, very, very long time. They get a lot of things going on here. As a matter of fact, in Santiago coming up this spring, Foo Fighters Alessia Cara Miley Cyrus, dosa cat and a ton more are going to be performing Gabala Palooza Chile, I believe that's in March like the second or third week of March. Check that out. And maybe a perfect time for you to make a trip here. Also, the Chilean food wine and cultural tour festival kicks off in March. That's great. It takes you all throughout the central valleys to some of the foreign regions, some of the food producing regions, some of the wineries, you'll go to restaurants, you'll be all over the place. It's a lot of fun. It's very affordable. It's definitely one of those yellow things you want to put on your calendar and check off your bucket list. But I hoped with a little bit of time that that we spent that I spent with you guys on this episode, you got a snapshot of Chile. I can do 100 episodes of Chile, for this podcast, and that was still not scratched the surface. So please do your own research. Listen to the podcasts over and over again to pick up a couple of things. Just in case you missed something. This place is fantastic. Get your answers here as soon as you can. I guarantee you're gonna love it. Thanks again for listening. I missed you guys. I can't wait to get back to you next week with another cool episode. Until then, take care and I'll see you guys next week. Bye.