Dec 31

New Years Eve Day!
The morning started well with fruit and tea for breakfast and then we hired bikes with no brakes (the type you have to pedal furiously backwards with to stop) for 10pesos an hour and cycled over to Hotel Azul to wake the boys. En route Riki almost collided with a car, and Beanie tried hard to navigate the roads safely. After we awoke them with 'room service' we got them up and met them back at our hostel to take a taxi to Jose Ignacio beach. 5 of us in a taxi, B was lying down on top of everyone for 40mins, which was a sticky experience for all involved. This particular beach is not the prettiest around, yet it seems to attract tv cameras, photographers, and the societal elite of South America. Rory splurged and hired some deck chairs and umbrella in an exclusive 'Personal' sponsored part of the beach. We all chilled out, with Riki and I sunning ourselves on our sarongs while watching the beautiful people walk by. At one point we got far too hot and decided to go for a swim in the kelpy brown water at the beach with Riki and I retiring once we realised the waves were a bit too violent for our bikinis to stay attached.
After a salad for late lunch and some more tanning we eventually taxied back to Punta centro for a shower before heading back to Hotel Azul to meet the boys (Rory, Ryan, Oli, Jean, Richard and Alex) for some Dom Perignon '99 bought by Rory in the airport and Riki's massive 1.5L bottle of South African Red wine, which was surprisingly easy to drink. We then went for a feed at the local restaurant - 'El Metejon' with Riki and I lining our stomachs with tasty steak, capresse salad and ravioli. Jugs of sangria later, fireworks started exploding all around and then the clock ticked twelve and we ran down to the waterfront to watch the spectacular amount of fireworks and celebrations happening. They adore their fireworks here and they continued well on into the evening/morning. We then all wandered down to a bar called Soho and danced and partied until the early hours before we all crashed and went home.