It was Christmas Eve babe, in the drunk tank......

We had such a lovely Christmas Eve......

Christmas is celebrated on the night of the 24th in Latin America and Daniele who wasn't going to be with us warned us to expect a big night with Raul and suggested taking a longer than average siesta to ensure that we were well rested for the night ahead.

After breakfast we all went for a short ride we were only out for about an hour and a half and it was the perfect reintroduction to riding for me - Harriet you'd have been proud, I didn't fall off and I got into a rising trot....

Riding with the gauchos on Christmas Eve

It was an incredibly hot day with a blue cloudless sky which made for some spectacular views of the Andes.

Stunning views all around

We got back, as ever, just in time for lunch and so after a quick shower I was sat on the veranda eating antipasti and drinking Chardonnay before moving to the outside eating area and having Milanese (veal escalope) and Malbec. As Daniele advised we all took a longer siesta after lunch before reconvening just before 9pm for some pre-dinner drinks, a sangria like punch made of white wine (what did you expect....) and fruit juice. When we walked into the dining room there was a huge buffet laid out of prawns & avocado, stuffed tomatoes, roast turkey and beef, Fiambre Aleman (yep, this was a new one on me too, it's a stack of pancakes sandwiched together with ham, egg, mayonnaise, cheese, tomato, onion). 

For pudding there was Rogel, a traditional Argentinian celebration cake made up of a huge number of thin pastry rounds with dulce de leche (really sweet caramel that the Argentinians eat like jam) to stick them together and then it's smothered in soft sticky meringue; it's a similar texture to baklava and about 100 times sweeter. Raul got lots of laughs when he used some of the meringue to create a moustache and he was closely followed by Archie who used it to create a full beard!

At midnight Raul opened a couple of bottles of champagne and the disco!

Look at Lilla shaking it.

It was the closest thing to a family Christmas that we could have had without having our own families here.

Our Christmas family, for one year only......

Raine x