First impressions of São Paulo

After 3 years in South America, I've had my first experience of Brazil, as I went to an education conference in São Paolo in October. São Paolo is a mega city, the largest city in Latin America with over 30 million people in the macro-metropolis area.  It is absolutely vast and the car is the … Continue reading First impressions of São Paulo

A spring break in San Pedro de Atacama

In October I spent some time in San Pedro de Atacama, for a spring break - although I'm not sure that spring is really a concept in a desert. However, being spring meant that it was a moderate temperature, both at night (not freezing) and during the day (not incredibly hot, merely high 20s in … Continue reading A spring break in San Pedro de Atacama

Ode to a Library

Fear not, despite the title I am not going to channel my inner Keats and force a poem on anyone.  None of us deserve that. I am, however, going to share my appreciation of my local library, and I realise that a more correct literary title would be a "Paeon of Praise" but it´s autumn … Continue reading Ode to a Library

A long, thin country

Lots of people know that Chile is a very long country and one way of understanding this is to unfold a standard size country road map.  Most countries fit fairly nicely onto the map, or can be put easily onto two sides - not so Chile.  When you unfold the map for Chile you find … Continue reading A long, thin country

Dogs with jobs

Unsurprisingly, as a rural country the Falkland Islands has lots of working dogs - Collies (England) are commonly used for farm work, as are Kelpies (Australia) and Huntaways (New Zealand). Then there are the military dogs doing security checks at the airport and round the military base. So far, so normal. Living here I have … Continue reading Dogs with jobs

Wild Goose Chases

My first night at the Beach Hut through the fury of the wind and rain beating on the cabin, I could hear geese calling to each other. The next morning, in the blue pre-dawn light, I could see the creek edges were alive with geese, ducks and the occasional swan. I made a cup of … Continue reading Wild Goose Chases

A weekend retreat

Most of my weekends away in the Falklands have been to outer, smaller islands, drawn there by the attraction of seeing some of the spectacular wildlife.  However, there are other weekend options on East and West Falkland where farms have created self-catering properties and new income sources.  Often self-catering units are existing houses that are … Continue reading A weekend retreat

Advanced Shopping Skills

When I first arrived one of my earliest posts was about the idiosyncrasies of shopping for food here - Food Shopping 101. Since then I have honed my shopping skills. There are more options what can be bought locally in the shops or on Chebay (as the Facebook Bring and Buy group is known). An … Continue reading Advanced Shopping Skills