Meat, Wine, and Workouts in Chile

I haven't posted recently because I was in Rio for the Summer Olympics the last six days and our days were jam packed!  So this will be my last post about Chile and then I'll have four or five posts about the Olympics.  I'm aiming for a post about every other day so we'll see how that goes!

My last post was about everyday things in Santiago.  And part of those everyday activities included eating, drinking, and exercising a lot.  A LOT.  So I'm going to run through the eating, drinking, and exercising highlights from my time in Santiago.  

Tiramisu, Friday, August 5
On Friday afternoon, after finally arriving and taking a nap to recover from my travel adventures, we went to Tiramisu, a pizza place about half a mile from Garv and Lindsay’s condo.  Of all the places I’ve been to in Chile, it’s my favorite and it's the place I’ve been to the most. Garv, LG, and I have gone each of the last two years.  I’ve also been several times with, ahem, acquaintances.  But for some reason, I’ve never written about it extensively.  It’s definitely one of the most popular restaurants in that part of Santiago and there can be waits of up to two hours.  The atmosphere and vibe is very chill.  The pizza is good.  The wine is great (it’s great in all of Chile).  And it’s exceedingly affordable.  Two pizzas, a salad, and a bottle of wine was only USD $45. In the US, the bottle of wine alone would cost USD $45. We went in the afternoon so it wasn't a typical Tiramisu experience but it was still great!

The only bad thing about such a short time in Santiago is only one meal at Tiramisu...

The PFG/CAT Invitational, Saturday, August 6
Friday evening, Garv and Lindsay hosted an Olympics Opening Ceremony watch party and this was the crew which also included Sarah, Casey, and Laurie (from left to right).  At the party, they decided to get up in the morning and go on a group run.  I'm assuming that runs for the next morning might rarely be planned at parties, but I'm assuming the runs planned the night before are executed even more rarely  Being the well-disciplined group that we are, we had the appropriate amount of appetizers, tacos, wine, and water while watching the Opening Ceremonies.

The seven runners in the first annual PFG/CAT Invitational. Clockwise from left: Sarah, Casey, Me, Garv, Laurie, Fuego, and Lindsay

So at 8:30, we all met for the eight mile PFG/CAT invitational (Garv works for Principal Financial Group and Laurie works for Caterpillar so Garv gave our run this moniker), including two miles up a mountain. Some of you might remember that last year I unexpectedly ran a 15k (nine miles) in an organized run. In the past year, I'd only run more than two miles once.  Once again peer pressure led me to running five times farther than I normally would.  I ran out too fast, ran slow in the middle, but then found a nice pace at the end. And once again, I enjoyed this run. Like I said in last year's blog post, the best kind of long run for me is for me to not know I'm going to run it.
Vineyards in Casablanca, Saturday, August 10
After running eight miles, the most obvious thing to do is visit some wineries.  We just did tastings rather than tours because once you've been on one tour, you've been on them all.  The first winery we visited was Vina Indomita (the two pictures below).  It is a mass producer of wine and they were perfectly open and proud of it.  The wines were pretty decent though and I ended up buying a few bottles.  The caption to the second picture illustrates a conundrum of Chilean wine production.  Chile leads the world in producing Carmenere and it's outstanding.  It also has a great story (scroll down to #1 in this post for the story). I recommend it to people frequently and it never lets me down.  In Chile, however, they tend to give more status to Cabernets and Merlots because they're better known grapes.  As Garv and I discussed, Chilean wine producers need to do a better job of marketing Carmenere.  So if Chilean wine producers won't market their amazing wine, I will!

My favorite white

Where is the Carmenere?

After Vina Indomita, we visited Vina Mar which was right next door as vineyards go.  This vineyard is known for it's sparkling wine and had several different flight options.  So we each ordered a different flight and shared...As I was saying, it's just what the body wanted after running eight miles.

We only drank a glass from each bottle...

A Chilean Asado, Saturday, August 6
After returning from the vineyards, we took a quick nap and then headed to the apartment of Francisco, Lindsay's and Garv's friend.  Fellow runners, Sarah, who's Francisco's girlfriend, Laurie, and Francisco's friend Carlos were also there.  Francisco is Chilean and a master griller.  Chileans are known for their asados, which are six hour meat fests.  The primary meat is a cut Chileans call entrana, but we would call flank steak.  It's only seasoned with salt and it's cooked really slowly.  It's so simple, but so good.  We started at about 8:30 and ended at 2:30 and also had some pisco sours and Chilean wine. We ate slowly and drank slowly. And I ate a lot and drank a lot.  It was a great night...

Entrana--salted and bloody

Choripan

With Francisco the Grillmaster

So good

The group at the Asado

Ciclovia, Sunday, August 7
After running eight miles, drinking lots of wine in the afternoon, eating lots of meat in the evening, and drinking lots of wine in the evening, what does the body want? To pedal a bicycle!  On Sundays in Santiago, the city closes down some main streets from 9:00-2:00 for bicyclists, roller bladers, joggers, and walkers.  We woke up at about 11:30 and hit the streets at noon.  The ride was pretty nice for the most part except for when Garv and Lindsay chose to ride a couple miles up a mountain instead of taking the flat roads.  I had flashbacks of an infamous Grand Canyon trip five or six years ago though the ride up this mountain was no where near as bad. But I still didn't enjoy it that much and made some very descriptive and exclamatory declarations to Lindsay and Garv about the stupid shit they think is fun.  Fortunately, the rest of the day was low key.  I think we relaxed and went out to eat that night.

Almost done

CHPE Libre, Monday, August 8
After relaxing most of Sunday, I wanted to have another relaxing day on Monday since I was still a little worn out.   Garv had to work but Lindsay and I slept in, did some grocery shopping, and did a late lunch.  We went to a place called CHPE Libre which was a place we'd had a drink at last year.  We figured that we'd have lunch and a pisco sour because that's what CHPE Libre.  But our lunches at CHPE Libre came with both pisco sour and wine.  So I had my pisco sour, my wine, and Lindsay's wine.  So my relaxing day included a "three martini lunch" and an awesome dessert.

Three martini lunch...

Tropical Meringue

TRX, Monday, August 8
After a three martini lunch, what does the body want?  An intense workout.  Lindsay and Garv have been taking TRX workouts for the last two years.  So we went to a local park to do some workouts.  It was pretty good and I didn't feel too bad.

Survived my first TRX workout

Vina Cousino-Macul, Tuesday, August 9
Tuesday was my last day in Santiago so we decided to visit a winery in the city of Santiago.  This vineyard is an example of how Chileans could market their wine better.  Originally, the winery was in the country but the city has swallowed it up so it could market itself as an urban winery experience.  And just look at the potential view at the entrance! That's very marketable.  But as Garv has told me many times when I ask him about why don't Chileans do this or that, he tells me "financial transactions are the furthest thing from their mind." Which is very strange for a business, but in my few experiences, it's true.  We did do a tour and it was pretty standard: look at the vines, discuss the harvest, look at the manufacturing process, look at the barrels and storage, taste the wine.  The wine was pretty good and great value so I bought five bottles to bring home!

Move the powerlines and remove the graffiti!

What would a wine tour be without a cellar with hundreds of barrels?

More wine to bring home!

Lunch at Plaza Nunoa, Tuesday, August 9
After the winery, we went to an area of town that I really liked for lunch.  We had the lunch of the day and it was about half a roast and some rice and it was really good.  In past posts, I'd been dismissive of Chilean food culture, but this trip has impressed me more, especially when it comes to beef!

I'm becoming more and more impressed with Chilean's ability to cook beef

Taqueria El Ranchero, Tuesday, August 9
For our final evening in Santiago, we visited El Ranchero, a Mexican Restaurant, with Garv and Lindsay's friends, Norm and Suzanne.  Last year I wanted to eat ten tacos, but Lindsay wouldn't let me for some dumb reason (see conflation #5).  So when planning this trip, I wanted to eat ten tacos and we had scheduled to do so on Monday night.  Unfortunately, my travel difficulties caused us to rearrange my schedule and we ate Mexican on Tuesday night.  So I only ate seven because I didn't want to feel sick before traveling to Brazil the next day.  Though I easily could have eaten ten...

Devouring some authentic Mexican tacos in Chile!

Devouring some more tacos!

This trip to Chile was much different than my two previous trips--it was shorter, more relaxing and not very touristy which made it a very enjoyable and satisfying trip.  And I'm glad it was like this because Rio was intense amazingness!