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  On Boxing Day 2008 we fly to Chile to join Christine, Diego, Tim, Annie, Nick and Diane for a New Year holiday. Fabulous views of the Andes and Aconcagua, the highest mountain outside the Himalayas, as we approach Santiago. No sooner have we all met up in Santiago airport than Diego is taking us on a tour of his city.We start by the presidential palace looking at ethnographica and statues of former presidents and then walk the streets to the Plaza de Armas.
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  Groups of tourists and locals are listening to entertainers, playing chess or just enjoying the weather on a hot Saturday afternoon. We stop for coffee before returning to our bus and driving to the aparthotel, Alessandria, in Las Condas, east of central Santiago.
The sun is shining and the mountains around the city are just visible through the haze.
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  After a rest we are off for dinner with Nory, Diego's sister and her husband Jose Raymond, aka Moncho. The rest of the family, including Diego's 88 year old mother, are there looking very good considering that it was Nory's daughter Lily's wedding to Claudio yesterday and they did not get to bed until 3! |
  Next day Diego drives us to the coast to San Antonio and Isla Negra, to visit the house of Pablo Neruda. This extraordinary shrine to Chile's poet and Nobel laureate is full of figureheads, model ships, bottles of every shape and size and even a life size plaster horse! Neruda lived here with his third wife Matilda. We enjoy pisco sours coloured to match both the sea and Nick's eyes. |
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  Pomaire, on the way back to Santiago, specialises in pottery. Locals and tourists throng the high street. Shops packed with everything from ovenware to multicoloured piggy banks.
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