Last week Johann and Pascal were in Santiago - our first visitors from Europe! To mark the occasion we ordered a giant Patagonian king crab at the downtown fish market. Johann is holding up our lunch here, no plastic dummy! Delicious. Further must-see places: our city-lookout, the local vineyards or (Dutch) street art in Valparaíso. Later on the two were off to their own travel adventures in Pucón and the Atacama. Loved it. For their last day, I arranged for something special: gliding! The steep hills of our neighbouring district Vitacura produce upward air currents, making the area ideal for gliding. Pascal is a glider pilot and was very proud to add a Chilean stamp to his logbook.

To everyone: 
You are warmly invited to stay with us if you happen to be South America. Just drop us a line :-) 

We are on the way home, back to Santiago! 

In March, we did a brief stopover to Laja waterfalls, remember? This time we went upriver to see the Antuco Volcano and Laja Lagoon. The area is mainly used for hydropower generation, but it's an impressive spot for visitors too. The lagoon shines in phantastic colours! But it's also extremely exposed terrain. The summer breeze almost blew us away! And in winter, the weather can turn nasty indeed, as the "Tragedy Of Antuco" sadly proved.  In 2005, a military exercise near Antuco Volcano got out of control, after an icy snow storm gripped the area and frooze 44 teenaged soldiers to death. They were disorientated and underdressed. Many failures came together. Now, in 2011, the government finally erected a memorial, to tell people about the dreadful incident.