Casablanca Valley, Chile

While I was in Chile, I did a wine tour of the Casablanca Valley. The tour was intimate with only 2 other guys in it. Both guys where from the States and loved their wine (and were also much more knowledgable in the subject than me!). The more wine flowed, the more information from their personal lives was provided. The first guy, Richard, was a former military man in his mid forties and was at the beginning of his world travels where he was searching for a place to retire from the army. The second guy by the name of John, was a consultant who spent 5 days out of the week in a different US city.

What those two guys had in common was that both were around the same age, both had jobs that took them far away from their homes, their love for wine and that they both just got divorced! Chile was their way of getting over their ex wives. In the past, I met many women who travelled to get over their broken hearts. Some were actually best sellers: “Eat, Pray, Love” and “Under the Tuscan Sun” to name a few. But this was the first time I met men who did the same.
John was too young to retire, therefore he only had a few weeks of vacation and was just looking to have a good time in a different country. He was not sure that he would ever get married again, and said that it is easier to find girls to have fun with than to date. While Richard who was only a few years older than John but due to his military career was already retired, was actually looking for wife number two. Or in his words, a place where I want to live and start over.
While wine helped these guys get over their feelings, their approaches were different and the love for travel prevailed. What I also realized was that when you travel with a great purpose other than to be in a different place, your perception is very different. John spent half of the tour texting some girl he met the night before and was getting more excited as the tour was coming to an end. While, Richard was looking at the real estate value throughout the region and was asking me if I thought that one of the women who was a tour guide at one of the vineyards would be interested in him. And I was just trying to take photos of the grapes and try my best to pay attention to the tour while tasting the many wines from the region!