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Rachel’s cold tones caused me to glance up from my breakfast bowl this morning with some panic… has she finally flipped? Who is she referring to? Our local annoying yappy dog didn’t deserve it- it has been at least 3 days since it has barked relentlessly!

I relax and my spoon returned to the fruit salad below. And missed. Doh!

Turns out, Rachel started thinning her tomato plants this morning (that’s “tomatoe”, not “tomaaato”, like a “potatoe” is not a “potaaaato” for any US of AAAAAAians reading this).

It seems such a waste of life. Although we hope the reward of the few survivors will turn out to be delicious (despite the smoggy air they’ll be breathing!).

We finally managed to escape Santiago at the weekend! Thanks to a lot of very efficient leg work by Douglas, we have negociated most of the mountain of paperwork required to drive our car here, and can now finally hit the road.

We spent the weekend at Los Molles, a village on the coast north of Santiago, accompanied by two random Aussies (whom Doug had met 4 days before) and a slightly less random Austrian. We had a great time walking, barbequeing, and we went to an olive oil plantation and learnt that warmed olive oil should smell like tomato leaves.

We also saw seals and sealions getting home by waiting for a massive wave to wash them half way up the rock and then climbing the rest of the way. Sometimes another wave would wash them back down again. The rock face was almost vertical, and they looked like giant slugs.

We were joined for the second night by our friends David and Anne, accompanied by the Landrover Club of Chile, who were great, enthusiastic, and excellent barbequers. Photos of landrovers will follow soon………….