Christmas post

Festive greetings from smoggy Santiago! We´ve had an eventful few days here in Chile. We loved Pucon. It was a beautiful mini-Bariloche - ridiculously scenic with shedloads to do, if slightly artificial and geared towards los turistas. Everyone kayaking and zipping and hiking all over the place. Mauro and I opted for a sedate, moonlit trip to some natural springs (Los Pozones), which turned out to be less sedate than we´d hoped as there were a bunch of rowdy Israelis in the baths with us. We had a suspicion the trip was by night because these springs are the most "rustic", so best not to be able to see them clearly, but we thought they were fantastic. Basically we sat in hot springs 1000 metres above sea-level and drank a bottle of wine, before our minibus took us back to our hostel at about midnight. Doesn´t get better than that.

In fact it was all to get a lot worse in Concepcion, a few hours further north... where I got ROBBED! My purse was taken by some sophisticated opportunists (this makes me feel less stupid) in Mauro´s uncle´s favourite local restaurant. The only place I´d let my guard down so far. We were told to expect more thefts because it´s Christmas time... Goodwill to all men and all that. That´s the Christmas spirit. Anyway, apart from Barclays now being #1 on my hate-list, I´ve got over this mishap and it´s all about the Nationwide. The only thing that made up for this in Concepcion was the fact that we stayed in the YMCA (it was - quite - fun to stay there, as it happens!). Mauro´s uncle Tito works there so let us have free rein of the accommodation area.

So now we´re in Santiago, and it´s a struggle getting Mauro to see its good points, despite the emotional pull of being born here. Buenos Aires it ain´t, but I think our opinion is skewed by the fact we´ve been travelling between his nan´s house and his uncle´s house, totally skipping the centre in the process. This is the equivalent of travelling from Acton to Croydon in a heatwave.

Today we finally managed to get downtown, where we had a lovely lunch and strolled into an exhibition of the Terracotta Army for just over a pound. It was brilliant. I have to go now and find some mascarpone somewhere in this city so I can make some tiramisu for Mauro´s enormous family do on Friday. But we wanted to write today to wish everyone a very happy Christmas. UN BESAZO PARA TODOS!!!!