Adventure of Entry and San Fernando, Chile

13.12. The taxi takes us to the airport in just 5 minutes. Everything is going according to plan except that we have to fill out a Jurada de Salud for Peru. Then we can check in quickly. We are even allowed to take our 2-liter bottle of water through security! The flight to Lima goes smoothly and prepares us for the 2nd stage to Santiago. But far from it, it can't work without an incident...

At check-in, we present everything: PCR test, Jurada de Salud, travel insurance, passport, ticket - and now please the return ticket. What? How? Return? Well, as tourists, we must be able to confirm that we will also leave Chile again.

All our explanations, that we do not know exactly how our trip will continue due to Covid (Argentina or Panama is quite a difference), that we have NEVER had to show an exit ticket so far, that we will definitely leave Chile after 5 weeks, that it doesn't matter to the airline itself if we have problems if we don't leave on time, everything is of no use: Without an exit ticket, they will not let us enter!

So we have to leave the line, stand somewhere in the Lima Airport terminal with trembling hands, growling at each other due to excitement, and try to buy tickets in the remaining 45 minutes, which we will probably waste since we will travel differently... We are CHF 1700.- poorer with tickets to Panama, stand in line again, and come to the same counter. By now, the lady from the airline has something against us (we do too!) and seriously asks us to present all the documents again! (The mood is a bit tense...) Finally, everything works out and after extensive checking of our exit tickets, the woman lets us go. Fortunately, the security check goes smoothly and we make it to the boarding gate on time. When we show our boarding passes, we are stopped once again: the lady at the counter has marked our tickets with a security warning! We are asked to prove once again that we have exit tickets! Our delicate nerves almost break... After a thousand curses and a few hexes, we sit in the plane to Santiago de Chile and take off.

Arriving in Santiago, the odyssey continues in the 2nd round: we have to take the PCR test again. Everything is extremely well organized and it goes smoothly. Nevertheless, the whole procedure takes about 2 hours. Finally, we pick up our luggage, which is circling on the conveyor belt in a loop, exchange money (30 minutes waiting in line), pick up our rental car, and finally, we are free to go! We are infinitely relieved and relax more with every kilometer we travel. We have chosen an agriturismo in San Fernando in Bolivia. There we have to go into "quarantine" until we receive the test results.

Finally, luck is on our side again: the Hostal Mapuweñimen is run by a retired couple. It used to be a small farm, now it consists of many smaller and larger wooden houses with a hot tub, grill, seating area, and all sorts of animals. Dogs, cats, alpacas, cows, donkeys, geese, and lots of chickens and roosters crowing against each other. Beautiful!

In the evening, we go out and eat pizza in San Fernando and buy fruits, water, and wine at the supermarket. Late in the same evening, we already get the results of our tests back: negative, so we are released, hooray!

14.12. Apart from the exhausting entry, we fall in love with Chile right away! There are several reasons for this: it is summer here and warm, our lungs immediately relax and breathing becomes easy again (we sleep better and longer than in Bolivia) and we have landed in the wine region! Today we want to visit a few wineries. Quickly, we realize that it is handled differently in Chile than in the United States or in Italy and France: tastings are actually only available in connection with a tour of the winery, at predetermined times. These tours are offered by only about 10% of the wineries. Otherwise, it's "per copa", meaning per glass, and then usually only individual wines. A glass here is usually 2 dl - so be careful! ;)

Also, one of the most famous export wineries doesn't have a sales or tasting room at all. Even the parking attendant finds this stupid... In the end, we taste at Viu Manet and at Viña Lapostolle (Clos Apalta). Alexandra Marnier (daughter of the Grand Marnier inventor) founded the winery. The tour of the vineyard and the winery is very exciting, informative, and impressive in terms of architecture. In the end, we taste 3 excellent wines and also enjoy the nice conversation with Margaret, a young woman from Santiago.

After an early dinner, we end the evening in front of our hut.