Playtimes HK Magazine Winter Issue 2018/2019 | Page 93

travel
Puerto Rico
South America
A small island with a big personality,
Puerto Rico serves up a sunny
Christmas with a salsa beat and a side
dish of spit-roasted pig. Festivities last
from early December to Three Kings Day
on 6 January.
From mid-December churches
conduct dawn masses rich with
Christmas carols, while exuberant
roving groups of carollers travel from
house to house and make merry. The
big feast is held on Christmas Eve,
followed by Midnight Mass. For season-
setting decorations, head to City Hall
on the Plaza de Armas and the fairy-lit
promenade Paseo de la Princesa.
Patogonia
South America
At the very south of South America
lies the sparsely populated region of
Patagonia, which spans both Chile and
Argentina. Settled by Welsh immigrants
in the 1860s, the official language of
this rugged and rural area is Patagonian
Welsh, although visitors will find that
Spanish is widely spoken.
Home to the Torres del Paine National
Park, the Southern Chilean region of
Patagonia is famed for its stunning
bright blue glaciers, extensive pampas
grasslands and jagged peaks, all of
which make for challenging, and highly
rewarding trekking. Explore on foot or
by horseback, led by knowledgeable
gauchos – Chile’s answer to the cowboy
– and marvel at the wild beauty of this
largely untouched corner of the world.
Winter 2018
91