But in our last day at our base in Pichilemu, we took a day trip over to the city of Santa Cruz located in the heart of Chile´s rich wine-producing Colchagua Valley, where we had lunch and then visited an absolutely amazing museum. . .the Museo de Colchagua, which is an incredible find in itself. Above is a picture Andres took of me photographing the valley as we entered it from the coast, following a well-graded "ripio" dirt road which saved us perhaps 10 km on our drive.
Anyway, back to Santa Cruz. This town of some 16,000 residents has become something of a closet tourist destination because of the celebrated (and expensive) tour of the wineries, aka La Ruta del Vino, which is the main reason why accomodations there are more costly (and why we made it a day trip as opposed to an overnighter). Of course, the presence of the museum adds something extra to the tourist draw because its exhibits are so special. Besides, the contents were so great that we simply couldn´t take everything in! One of my guide books recommended at least a two-hour visit, but in reality one should plan a good half day, or four hours to do it justice. From the entrance, the visitor initially passes through the incredible exhibit of fossils (Andres´ favorite of course) and then proceeds into the palentology wing, where the visitor encounters the bones of extinct mammals (including megatherium and saber-toothed tiger) plus the most extensive private collection of amber in the world, the fossilized resins of which contain many examples of insects and plant matter frozen in time that goes back some 45 million years.
Beyond the paleontology exhibit the visitor enters the Precolombian Cultures wing with an incredible display of pottery, tools, weapons, clothing remnants, and even mummified remains from nearly every Precolombian American civilization, from the Mayans and Aztecs to virtually scores of ancient South American cultures. Then it is on to the wing dedicated to the Spanish - including both the conquest and colonial periods, with too many artifacts to recount. One unique item is Bernardo O´Higgins´ elegant upright piano from 1810. O´Higgins is considered to be the George Washington of Chile - the father of the country who lives on as the character on practically every denomination of Chilean coin.
The museum continues on and on and on...Chilean history continues with the Independence and the Republic wings, including a special section on the War of the Pacific (1879-1884), Liturgy and the Catholic Church and then on to more modern times. There is a particularly fascinating wing dedicated to the Huasos and their gear (Chilean cowboy culture) and then a special wing devoted to an immaculate collection of horse-drawn carriages. Then there is the wing dedicated to automobiles, which includes some very special antique vehicles of local Chilean interest, plus old racing cars and a few examples of early gas station pumps from Chile too.
I never even made it to see the wine cultivation exhibit or the exhibit of ancient firearms and weaponry or the Railroads of Chile display, and I could only walk through the exhibits of vintage farm implements and machinery, and sadly, the Charles Darwin wing was closed for remodeling. In reality, I couldn´t give this extra special museum the royal treatment it deserved because we had to head back to our base at Pichilemu. Regardless, if I should be able to return once again to Chile, visiting this museum again will be a priority, and I highly recommend it to anyone going to Chile.
Now on a more sober note, I´ll close out this blog post tonight by noting that in many places we visited, there was still ample evidence of the destruction of the massive 8.8 scale earthquake that happened here just over a year ago. In this picture above, which was taken from right next to where we had parked out rental car in Santa Cruz when we went to the museum, you can see one example of the damage done, even a full year later. And there are many buildings like this in Santa Cruz, many of which looked to have been historic buildings, but now await an uncertain fate.
For now, this will be my final post from Chile since by this time tomorrow evening I will be boarding my flight to go back to the USA. I am not sure yet if I will be posting a post-mortem on this trip, so let me just say that I´ve had a grand time once again visiting here, and especially having the opportunity to spend part of this trip with Constanza, Matias and Cristobal - Andres´ three wonderful kids. And of course, it has been a blast to tour around with Andres. I also think we saved some major $$ by deciding to make Pichilemu our home base and then to do a variety of day trips rather than relocating every couple of days. In the end, the venerable Hotel Asthur kind of became our "home" on the road, and it was even kind of sad to leave it this morning...
Now my NEXT adventure will be coming up in just about three weeks! I am announcing here and now that I will be visiting Mexico for the first time in nearly 20 years, going as an invited guest of a young woman who has been researching the life of Felipe Angeles (just like me) who lives in the home state of General Angeles - Hidalgo, Mexico. Her name is Juany Gutierrez and she has done some graduate studies on Angeles and she found me on the internet a couple of years ago and we have been in correspondence ever since. She and her husband Leo will meet me at the airport in Mexico City on April 4th, and then they will bring me back to their home in Pachuca, Hidalgo. Then they will take me to all of the pertinent sites and museums there, plus a research trip back into Mexico City, and finally, a drive north to they city of Zacatecas, where General Angeles engineered his greatest military victory when he masterminded Pancho Villa´s defeat of the traitor General Huerta´s federal Mexican army in June 1914. At one point I argued against the Zacatecas trip simply because of logistics of it all...it will be a 10-hour drive there, and another 10 hours back to Pachuca. But Juany and Leo said that they really wanted to take me to Zacatecas so I finally agreed.
The Mexico trip will last only one week, from April 4 to 11, but I´ll try to post images and stories here as best as I can - so stay tuned!
Cheers!!
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