I picked up a book in a charity shop a while ago, I’m not sure where or when, an old 60s paperback. Spanish Fever, by Norman Bogner. It had a cheesy cover, of the sort typical of those times at the dawn of the sexual revolution when any book that hoped to fly off the […]
The food gods have been kind. Last December I went to a one-off meal prepared by star Mexican chefs and René Redzepi, for some years number-one chef in the world. And now I’ve eaten in one of the most recent recipients of three Michelin stars, Emmanuel Renaut’s Flocons de Sel restaurant near Megève in the French Alps. […]
‘For my birthday,’ she said, ‘I want to go on a hot-air balloon ride’… That said, the question was where. Obviously, when you go up in a balloon, you want something special to look down at. The options within the UK seemed a little routine, the landscapes to fly over too familiar and lacking in […]
Well, it’s only two days – or less, depending on your time zone – to the ending of the 13th Baktun of the current Great Cycle of the Maya Long Count Calendar, at least for those most enthusiastic about the event (many archaeologists and other Maya students say the date actually is more likely to […]
There seems to be a fair amount of confusion and a lack of clear information about the possibilities of driving independently around the Torres del Paine national park in southern Chile. Some people still seem to suggest that this is tough to do on your own, and that to get to and around the park […]
The island of Chiloé in southern Chile is not a place that promotes itself very aggressively in the world, but it is quietly proud of having given the entire world the potato. History traditionally holds that potatoes were first domesticated around 10,000 years ago in southern Peru and Bolivia, where they were first encountered by […]
For a long time I’ve heard great things about the Navimag ferry, which runs from Central Chile’s southernmost point at Puerto Montt for three days down through fiords and glaciers to Chilean Patagonia at Puerto Natales, just south of the Torres del Paine. A trip of a lifetime, I’ve heard from so many. Though I […]
Foodie reasons for visiting Chile, number 1: fish and seafood Firstly, because they’re so good, and the centre of much the most interesting Chilean food; and second, because, at least for anyone from the Northern/Atlantic hemispheres, they’re so fascinatingly new and unfamiliar. The most popular fish are reineta, congrío and corvina, and a star among the range of shellfish are machas. […]
Deserts are giant sculptures. In the arid world stripped of normal fertility, moisture and softness, the comfortable shapes of more habitable landscapes give way to an extraordinary range of abstract forms and textures, stripped of any covering to make them more amenable to human touch. This is one of the things that give deserts […]
It’s surprising to find that Santiago, capital of Chile (not de Cuba or de Compostela), can look a little forbidding at first sight, at least if you head straight for the centre. The presidential seat the Palacio de la Moneda, a neatly-proportioned neo-classical mansion typical of the last burst of building of the Spanish Empire […]
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