Estimated reading time: 2 minutes
This week it was time for Friday Champagne 8.0 – Bollinger ‘Vieilles Vignes Françaises’ [collaboration by Twenty Studios]
[read the full story & score by Richard Juhlin here]
Champagne Hiking with Bollinger ’Vieilles Vignes Françaises’
Any other time, the flat tyre would have had us worried throughout the night, but the show on the evening sky granted us an harmony that led us to forget both time and space. When I got up for breakfast, Pål had already disappeared. During the most beautiful sunrise I have ever seen, he returned with a smile on his face. The hero of the day had the same name as the guitar hero of my youth, yes he’s called Carlos Santana! He mumbled something in Spanish, inspected the vehicle and produced the spare tire that we had not been able to find. He got down on the ground, got up and patted Pål on the back a few minutes later, contended with a few pesos for saving our entire trip. Our saviour!
This meant that we could devote our day to explore the terrain and the potential locations for the book in peace. Despite inclement weather, we agreed that this was perhaps the most beautiful landscape we had seen. New Zealand would later prove even more varied and beautiful, but in a limited area as in this national park, Torres del Paine, we had never seen anything quite so magnificent. Rock formations, so diverse that they had a different expression from every angle. Lakes in all colours imaginable and turquoise waterfalls wherever we looked. All the time new cloud formations and weather conditions. Cria herds of the llama species guanaco and flocks of the ostrich bird nando roaming the dark green hills, stands of flamingos in the dark blue salt lakes under the watchful eye of condors and shy cougars. Unlike most natural aradise,the area is mostly free from tourists. Plenty of backpackers and natureloving ramblers, of course, but the area is so large that it devours us all to make it look almost desolate.
[read the full story & score by Richard Juhlin here]
