Not at all chilly

We left the island on New Year's Eve with quite a few other holiday makers. At the passport control desk I was amused to overhear an older Falkland Islander requesting the passport official bring her horse to graze his grass in Stanley. Although quite a few modern folk mow their grass nowadays there is still a fair bit of communal grazing as the houses in town typically have sizeable plots.

The flight was ok although a bit wobblier than usual from cross-winds on take-off leaving me a bit pale-faced! Only 1.5 hours to South America though so happily very short. After what seemed like a ridiculous lap of the terminal at Punta Arenas we set off for Santiago, essentially flying halfway up the length of Chile, so this took a wee bit longer. If we'd have had a window seat I expect the views would have been marvellous.

Santiago was as expected; vast, sprawling and modern but with glimpses of something different. We made the most of the warm Mediterranean weather and walked the streets, shopped and ate our way round.

Vina Del Mar was next, an hour from the capital, on the coast. This became a favourite as although it is a huge and somewhat bland modern seaside resort, Valparaiso, a port town only a short metro ride away is much more interesting.

The next challenge was hiring a car and exiting Santiago, this was actually not too difficult and we found ourselves heading south on Ruta 5. Cue comical moment when Big Man asked me where we were staying for the first night of our road trip as I had done most of the planning and booking myself. 'Curico' I replied. 'Wasn't that the town that was flattened by the 2010 earthquake?' he says. 'Er, yes, possibly'. So we didn't know what to expect arriving into the town late in the afternoon, wondering if we would be accommodated next to a pile of rubble, or even in one. Turned out to be fine, the hotel was nice, yes a few buildings (mainly the older ones) had been damaged so had hoardings outside them and our hotel room was equipped with more than the average amount of safety information (and even a torch!) but we had no problems.

My second favourite moment was our wine tour, tasting and lunch at Miguel Torres HQ. Speaks for itself really!

We had 4 lovely nights in the lake district staying in a cabana with lovely views of the lake and two nights in Puerto Varas, which was a smaller resort with lots of German influences and beautiful snow-capped volcanoes in the distance.

After a nerve-wracking trip to locate petrol on the way to Puerto Montt airport, we dropped off the hire car and flew back to Punta for a final night. Our taxi driver spoke excellent English and was somewhat of a comedian. Turns out he used to live in Florida where his only concern was whether to go to the beach or the pool. Now he lives in Punta where it rains 5 days out of 7. His Nibs was not impressed with the service at table during dinner, having to eat without being given his second glass of red wine. Turns out there were loads of politicians and diplomats in the function room hogging all the staff - don't they know who we are?!

It was a lovely fortnight away but I feel that madamoiselle summed it up when she said towards the end 'sometimes I want to be back in my green home house'.