There is nothing ‘organic’ about Cancun. It’s a planned city designed explicitly for tourism, with the ‘hotel zone’ along a narrow spit of white sandy beaches, and then the ‘real’ city where all the people who work in the hotel zone actually live. Instead of staying in the ‘Zona Hotelera’ – the bit lined with…
3rd May 2016 – Cheat’s easy Creamy Thai Green Curry
A couple of people asked for the recipe for this. I’m slightly embarrassed to recount how easy it is, but here goes: Ingredients: 1 litre of coconut milk Thai green curry paste – see below White fish fillets – also see below A couple of bags of stir fry veg. I use a ‘chinese stir…
6th December – 11th December – San Pedro de Atacama
Our lovely hotel in San Pedro – a small town of a few streets in the middle of the desert: We took a morning trip to the ALMA base station – the antennae themselves are at 5000m altitude so they don’t take visitors there… By luck there was an antenna ‘in the workshop’ so…
5th December – Antofagasta and the Very Large Telescope
After an overnight (reasonably comfortable) coach journey from La Serena, we had a driver collect us from the bus station to squire us around for the day. First stop: brunch with a view of the Antofagasta fishing port: Next stop ‘La Portada‘ – the natural ‘monument’ just outside Antofagasta – a sea-arch: Then it…
1st December – 4th December – La Serena
It’s a sea-side resort. We read books and drank wine on our balcony while looking at the pacific ocean. That’s about it. Oh yes, we occasionally made it out of our apartment to have a meal next to the beach. There is a town in La Serena as well as the beach resort, although we…
28th November – 1st December – Border Crossing / Santiago de Chile
The ‘Los Libertadores‘ road border crossing between Argentina and Chile is possibly one of the most spectacular journeys in the world: Out of Mendoza, we were still passing through vineyards for some time: Slowly the lush greenery started to become more barren and hilly: Throughout the journey a – non-functional – narrow gauge railway line…
24th November – 28th November – Mendoza and Chacras de Coria
We say ‘we are going to Mendoza’, but strictly speaking we meant the region and not the city. Mendoza city seems to be perfectly nice, with wide avenues, plenty of squares, and mostly low-rise buildings (all designed after the earthquake). However, our visit was not about the city but about the WINE, so after one…
18th November – 24th November – Buenos Aires (and Uruguay!)
After four weeks of countryside it was time to come back to the big city. Buenos Aires really *is* a big city, with about a third of the country’s population in the metropolitan area. Like any big city it is made up of areas or ‘barrios’ each with its own character, typical architecture etc. Like many…
15th November – 18th November – San Carlos de Bariloche
Beautiful Bariloche – in the Argentinian lake district – seems to specialise in chocolate and beer. Oh, and hiking, cycling, fishing and general outdoor loveliness. But mostly, in our case, it was the home of the completely-disproportionately-large-for-our-hotel-room hot tub: As well as curious (greedy?) bird-life knocking on our patio windows every morning: Despite the hot tub,…
11th November – 14th November – Trevelin and Esquel
One of the reasons I wanted to come to Patagonia in the first place was the Welsh heritage, so here we are in Trevelin, one of the towns that retains not only Welsh place names but also language, where plenty of people siarad at least a tipyn bach of Cymraeg. As well as optional free classes,…
6th November – 10th November – El Chalten
El Chalten is a small town 3 hours drive from El Calafate, near to the border with Chile. It’s known as the ‘National Trekking Capital’: mainly because that’s the only reason the town is there – it’s inside the Glaciers National Park and has access to many one-day and multi- (up to 10!) day hikes as well…
3rd – 6th November – El Calafate: Glacier Hike, Perito Moreno Boat Trip, and more…
We arrived in El Calafate after a 5 hour but fairly uneventful journey that included the very straightforward Chile>Argentina border crossing. Apparently the other way is more complex and includes baggage scans and checks on boots etc because there is an issue with didymo. This is the view across the lake from our hotel, the…
Our adventures 