Chickpeas and sweetcorn vegan burgers

We can't claim ownership of this recipe as it is Jaime Oliver's! Nevertheless, here is a picture summary with some changes to the original:

Express Homemade Chocolate Icecream (dairy free and relatively low cal)

We have been a little experimental in the kitchen in the last few weeks and some of the tests turned out amazing such as this homemade chocolate ice-cream! :)

Super easy. Here are the ingredients:

Acro Yoga

One of us is keener on yoga than the other but we are always up for a team challenge so decided to give Acroyoga a go a few weekends back!

Acroyoga, as you may guess from the name, has an acrobatic element to it. It is also called "partner yoga" as you work at it in pairs: there is a base and a flyer - in our case it was easy to decide who was going to be which! ;o)

Volcán Osorno

What is the meaning of life? no idea (apparently to find your gift)... what is the purpose of life? (apparently to give your gift away!) probably to learn and experience as much as you can. A part of that is work but when you are in a beautiful place like Chile one needs to make opportunities and take advantage as they present themselves to explore and see what amazing places our planet has to offer. Los Lagos is one of the most picturesque regions in Chile (one can argue in the world!). It still has lots of native forests, wild and untamed rivers (not so many due to salmon farming but this is one for another post!), pristine lakes and all of this with the beautiful addition of permanently snow capped volcanoes.

Cerro Ñipa

Here is a quick little blog about another hike, Cerro Ñipa. It has been on our "to-do" list for a few months now, but the alignment of the planets was never quite right, or something, and therefore we only got around to do it couple of weekends ago. We are posting it here because it is really close to Santiago, actually rather nice (most of it at least!) and one of those hidden gems that people easily tend to overlook because there´s some more popular stuff just around the corner.

Sky Diving

Now and again it is time to push one's limits and get out of the "comfort zone"... which is precisely what we did a few weeks ago when we decided to try sky diving!

Reserva Rio Clarillo

The spring is now well on the way and we have been taking advantage of all the nice weather. At the end of September we went on a nice little hike with a few colleagues in Reserva Rio Clarillo. While this is not as close to Santiago as our more usual treks, it is still within easy reach (just on the southern outskirts, near the town of Pirque).

Fleeting visit to Trinidad

The "excuse" for our little holiday in Colombia was a meeting that Patricia was invited to join on the Caribbean island nation of Trinidad and Tobago. That meeting was scheduled for a Saturday and we left Cartagena Thursday morning.

Caribbean Colombia

As mentioned at the end of our last blog post, we recently treated ourselves to a short break from the Santiago winter and jet-setted up to Colombia for a little over a week. There was an excuse, i.e. a meeting that needed attending, and Colombia was sort of on the way.

Pfiffi and the winter

It has been a while since our last post (and it is not for lack of action, but mainly for lack of time). Since La Campana we have managed:

La Campana - an autumn walk above the clouds

La Campana is a national park near Santiago in the Valparaiso region. There are several treks to do in the area but the most challenging one is the Sendero Andinista which goes up to Cerro la Campana.

An autumn weekend in the south

The 1st of May, like in many other places, is a public holiday in Chile, and this year many made a 4-day long weekend of it. We were no exception, although we already left Santiago Tuesday morning having made arrangements for a work trip followed by a few days of fun down south. "Down south" in Chile can refer to anywhere between Santiago and the Straight of Magellan, we headed to the Bio-Bio region, about 500km south of the capital.

On street harassement and gender parity

Most foreigners moving to Chile want to know as much as possible before they get here. Some information is easy to come by, other not so much. After 3 years here I think it is fit to write a short summary on gender parity in Chile.

A very exciting new project - an eco home

For a while now we have been toying with the idea of moving and living in the countryside. We were first thinking about this when we were still in Bristol and relocating to Santiago may have seemed like a step in the wrong direction (...though it has its pluses, like 330+ sunny days per year and the Andes only a few minutes by car! - or a few mooooore minutes by bike ;o)).

Moving house and buying furniture

We moved house a few weeks ago. It probably was a downgrade in terms of property (which is fine by us as we are quite austere at the best of times) but on the upside we no longer have to share with a very peculiar landlady. This move is also a part of a bigger "master plan" (...more about this in another blog post soon).

Rafting Cajon del Maipo

Santiago is a great place to be in if you are looking for a little fun and adventure not too far from a city. We've been mainly trekking the beautiful mountains near us but there is lots more to do. For example, a couple of weekends ago we went rafting in Cajon del Maipo.

Good night Princess

We decided to euthanize Margarita today (quite likely we will only post this after she has been put to sleep and neither will be in a particularly good mood to write). In the last 2 months she progressively deteriorated to a point where she was not even too fussed by food and I had to feed her breakfast, lunch and dinner with my hand or she would not touch her plate (not to mention trick her to eat by putting olive oil on her food, or adding tomato sauce to her pellets etc). She also had lumps everywhere, at least a dozen: under her eyes, on her face, head, neck, back etc… and also inside her… lumps that we could feel and no doubt others that we could neither see nor feel.

Los Lagos

After a few relaxing days on Chiloe we decided to spend the last three nights back on the mainland north of Puerto Montt. This region of Chile is called "Los Lagos" for its numerous lakes and fjords. It also features spectacular snow capped volcanoes and National Parks with Valdivian temperate rain forest.

Chiloe

Over the Christmas period, we decided to do a little exploring on the Isla Grande de Chiloe. Chiloe is a group of islands and the isla grande is the largest island of the group: roughly 180 km long and 50 km wide. The easiest way to get there is to fly to Puerto Montt (which is a not particularly nice city which lies 1000km south of Santiago), then hire a car and cross over via a ferry (all very straight forward, just follow the signs, the ferry is roughly 10.000CLP).