~
Having survived the earthquake and located a car rental place we hit the road heading south to Santa Cruz. Oh, but before we left the car-park we had to battle the GPS which did not want to stay in the English option. Once we had English locked in we chose the Australian Lee to guide us. Lee might’ve had a few too many Fosters though as he was not always very accurate. .
Santa Cruz is about 5 hours drive away so we aimed to arrive there in time for lunch at a vineyard. The manservant rented a “city elite” car – ‘elite’ denoting that it was the larger model but it was *very* small; scary-small for the open road. The motor sounded like a lawn mower and was obviously not much bigger as it could barely propel us forward *and* operate the air-conditioning at the same time! Only my smallish suitcase fitted in the boot while the manservant’s army duffle bag and our backpacks were squashed onto the back seat. Rather than complain (ha ha) I spent my time photographing the passing scenery.
Eventually we arrived in Santa Cruz 
parked the car and walked around:
We went to a really impressive museum in Santa Cruz, called the Museo Colchagua it was the most expensive place we visited during our time in Chile. It was inaugurated October 20th 1995 by the Cardoen Foundation and covers prehistoric times to late 20th century extensively and then major events since 2000. There were displays of pre-Colombian pottery & jewelery, a display about the trapped Chilean miners & their rescue (2010), some Nazi memorabila, automobiles & carriages. The only photo I have of the museum is from the back after we exited through the purple gift shop. 
The admission ticket covers a 24-hour period and we intended to go back as the museum would really take about 3 hours to fully appreciate and we’d only spent a little over an hour there. Unfortunately the timing did not work out for us to have a 2nd visit. But for now, it was time to get back in the midget car and find a vineyard for what was going to be a very late lunch.
.
Aussie Emjay's Blog 
Your photo (La Pequena China) proves to me that there is a Chinese restaurant/takeout in every city of the world. What did you eat at the vineyard? Or maybe a better question would be, what did you drink there?
LOL – that’s exactly what we said when we saw that Chinese restaurant. A trillion years ago when I was growing up the only restaurants in middle-of-nowhere towns were Chinese. Greek-owned cafes seemed to be next – “cafe” in a take-away food sort of place with a few booths or rickety tables with plastic tablecloths.
I love the multi-shot gallery of the town!
Too bad no piccie of the car. I rented the tiniest car I’ve ever seen when I was in The West of Ireland. It LITERALLY barely fit my suitcase in trunk. I mean, it took WEDGING but it did go in. That astounded me. And I’ve lived in Europe. Turns out, I was super-pleased as the roads in the west are quite narrow and 2 inches off are stone walls. For realz. I lost a hubcap, which embarrassed me. ‘Stupid American Driver.’ But the locals said, ‘Go look at our cars.’ No hubcaps. It’s a thing.
LOL @ the hubcaps! When I was in Guernsey (British Channel Isles) it was the same thing – skinny laneways lined with stone walls. Our email confirmation just listed it as “City Elite” which was one up from the ‘city car’ . I’d describe it as “sub-compact”!
What a charming little town!
It really was Kim – I thoroughly enjoyed our wander around and wished we had more time to explore.
You missed your vocation as a travel presenter on TV Emjay.
Oh, thank you GOF. I remember after the first training session I did here on “Business Etiquette” the first question was “When will we see you on PBS?” (Public Broadcasting – a bit like our SBS). I told the manservant that it was just the accent.
Seriously though, I found what we saw of Chile to be fascinating and want to share it. I hope it does not change too much!
So I am guessing that focussing on the cross at the top of the hill on the highway leading to Santa Cruz was not an accident? We had a Fiat Cinquecento (500) in Italy. Yours sounds as if it may have been even smaller.
Chile is a very Catholic country and there are crosses and Virgin Marys in the strangest (to us) places. I Googled the Fiat and think that is smaller than what we had – not by much though 🙂