I really don’t like beaches

As we were by the sea, I felt the weight of the expectation to go to the beach. I’m not a fan: beaches are uncomfortable, uncomfortably hot and there’s nothing to do—unless it’s a surf beach. It wasn’t.

Fortunately, I am not uncomfortable looking like a stereotypical Englishman. While Susi, under the vast parasol, read something mildly improving while wearing a sun hat, huge sunnies and a cardie; I moped about in a cricket hat, getting fried and wishing I was in the bar.

Looking for something to do, I took my pasty body and sunburnt feet for a run down the beach. Like Southend, there’s a decrepit pier here. Gangs of kids in wet suit and flippers were throwing themselves and their bodyboards off into the surf below. They looked like the reprobate younger brothers of Dogtown and Z-Boys.

For a while I was chased by an aggressive sausage dog, which in turn was chased by its embarrassed teenage owner. I feared for my ankles and her bikini. A little further up another dog was being operated on by apparently normal beach goers. Perhaps this is how they deal with unruly dogs here.

There was a further element of danger to running here. All along the beach brown-and-white striped diaphanous jellyfish had been washed up. I was keen to avoid a sunburnt foot-full.

There are lots of things about Chile I like, for instance, they were holding a beach 7s rugby tournament. Also, things work: a lack of sparks from a plug means it functions properly rather than the reverse, as in Bolivia.

However, cocktails makers here are as cack-handed as Bolivia. It takes a special ineptness not to be able to make a Cuba Libre. I forced it down and thought of Chilean vineyards.