Feliz año nuevo!

I don´t think I could have had a better start to the new decade. Whilst Christmas definitely feels less festive when it´s hot and sunny, the summertime really suits New Year´s Day (probably my least favourite day of the year back home). The start of the year feels positive and sunny and green and full of birdsong and blossoming promise. OK, it´s easy to say that when you´re on an epic holiday but still. We´ve spent the day at Mauro´s cousin´s house, or to be more precise, in her garden; swimming in their pool and eating seafood and an asado (BBQ-style).


Last night, we saw the new year in with another family meal in the garden and stuffed ourselves full of locos (similar to abalone), king crab (definitely the king of all crabs), salmon and trout. We even had ´merquén ´pasta (´merquén´is a smoked red chilli mix produced by Mapuches, apparently). I´ve been trying to rein in the foodfest talk but we´ve eaten really well in Chile, it has to be said. This country´s got a lot of coastline going on, so the seafood is really varied. Also, Los Venegas really know how to cook; I can see where Mauro gets it from.



We´ve kept ourselves busy with a few daytrips in the last few days. One good thing about Santiago is it´s easy to get out of (a bit like Lewisham). Mauro´s uncle Ricky took us to a lovely French restaurant in the Cajón de Maipo, a valley near the mountains about an hour out of the city. Here we are enjoying the view.













Then we took a trip with the other side of Mauro´s family to Pomaire, a tiny pueblo famous for its terracotta craftmanship and enormous empanadas. I don´t really see the charm in a one-kilo empanada but we all shared one anyway. The day after we headed off to the coast, to Valparaíso. Initially we were planning on spending new year´s eve here. It´s the place to be - spectacular fireworks and thousands of people. A bit like new year´s eve everywhere really. In the end we decided not to go. Mauro´s not that into fireworks and I´m not a fan of huge crowds, plus all accommodation and buses were fully booked a while back. I don´t know why we considered it at all actually, ja ja. So we went the day before instead, which was a much better idea. No crowds and no fireworks.



We´d been to Valpo before in 2007 and loved it - it´s one of those cities you can keep discovering. It´s beautiful and charming, if a bit run-down and rough around the edges. It definitely doesn´t have the slightly artificially tinge of the likes of Pucon and Bariloche. This time we got to visit one of Neruda´s houses too, La Sebastiana, which was fantastic - one of the highlights of our trip so far. Perched on top of one of the cerros (hills), it had views of the entire bay. Neruda himself said the sea was "was so big, unruly and blue that it fitted nowhere. That's why they left it in front of my window”.

So just two days remain in Chile Part 1, before we head to Rio. Two days for Barclays to get their act together and send me a replacement card and two days for Mauro to make the most of his family. But Chile Part 2 is only a few months (and three countries) away so it´s "hasta luego" and not "adios". Meanwhile, it´s now time for some dulce de leche action (or ´manjar´as the Chilean calls it...mmmm). Hasta luego and a heartfelt "happy new year!" to all our friends and family.