Don't ever use booking.com

I set off early this morning from Valparaiso, over the hill behind my hotel, but my car struggled and I was lucky to make it up the steep mountains to finally reach the tollway! I could see why buses don't attempt it. Today was a drive to Talca with a 2 hour detour to the Vik Winery which was voted No.3 among the world's best vineyards. Check out it's over the top website https://www.vikwine.com/en/.

The drive today was fascinating. From Santiago to Talca (5 hours), it was non-stop agriculture: Grapes, nuts, citrus, corn, packing sheds, processing plants and huge roadside billboards advertising biological fungicides, chemicals, herbicides and insecticides. I must have passed 50 trucks carrying multiple 1000L containers of ag chem destined for the farmers. I don't know where most of Chilean agriculture goes, but judging by the number of Chinese containers I saw (thousands), I suspect their production mostly goes to China.

The Vik Winery was quite spectacular (the only pics I took today) but I wasn't prepared to spend $60 per bottle without getting some free samples, so I left. About this time of the afternoon I started to get some weird messages from Booking.com about my accomodation for the next few nights in Los Angeles. It turns out that the "owners" had some septic issues and told me to cancel my booking. Of course it was too late to cancel and Booking.com would keep my payment. A total scam and I doubt I will ever the see the money I paid for the accomodation. It is the only time I used Booking.com this trip and I will never use them again. Make sure you always deal directly with the hotel!! and don't use booking websites!!