Thursday is a national holiday in Chile and so there are no classes. We decide to use the day to climb the St Sebastian's hill in Santiago. Setting out, we find that we are not the only people with this in mind. The paths up the hill are full of people walking, cycling, skateboarding and even roller skating up the hill. We follow the main road up, visit the huge statute of the Virgin Mary which is impressive, though close up I don't find it as impressive as the view of it from the bottom of the hill, especially in the evening when it is lit up and looks for all the world as though it might alight from its perch and stride across the town, healing the sick as it goes. We sit for a while, admiring the cityscape - and the pollution - from the top, and then begin to walk down. We want to get down in good time to have a nice long lunch somewhere so we try out what look like alternative shortcut paths down. After a while of following one of these the territory becomes more or less unnavigable. There are deep pits and drops. After we encounter a number of makeshift ramps and jumps we realise that we are sauntering casually along a mountain bike path. Realising this, amazed by the hard core nature of the track given we are having trouble with it on foot, and somewhat shamefacedly, we make our way back. As we approach the top again in order to change our tracks and take the path, we realise there is a rather large queue of mountain bikers waiting to launch themselves down it.
Sorry.
The next day is our last day in school. We go in, pose for the obligatory 'graduation' photographs and leave, safe in the knowledge that our test results show we are capable of progressing onto level A2. I am sad to leave the school - I have been hugely impressed by its ability to make me like learning a language and to actually teach me something. I have become fond of everybody there and would quite happily do another two weeks, though money will not permit it. To celebrate, and because it is our last day in Santiago as well as at the school, we attempt to go out for dinner in our favourite vegetarian restaurant. However it appears I have been nursing some form of 24 bug or travellers tummy and it manifests spectacularly so that the evening ends in us leaving the restaurant rather hurriedly and me startling passers by, by pausing every few steps to hurl into the nearest drain, flower bed or other vaguely respectable receptacle all the way home.
Sorry....
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