And here it is a New Day a New Year. Today the sun was out and we were all up by 9am ready to start the preparations for today's Curanto. I took the dogs for a walk along the beach whilst the others had breakfast and showers. Xavier and I then started a small fire in a whole we had dug out earlier and after about an hour added coal and slowly added small stones (these would eventually heat and form the cooking mechanism for the Curanto). At around 1pm we were ready to start; first we removed the wood and then to the hot rocks we added about 8kg of large/small mussels, 2kg of clams, potatoes, smoked pork legs, pork sausages - then a huge leaf/fern was placed over the top and on this we placed chupalaylee (home-made potato/cheese/lard bread) then another huge leaf; then another bread type thing was placed on this; another big leaf - 5kgs of beans and Habas; another leaf and finally a block of cheese. On top of all this we placed more big leafs and lastly a huge plastic tarp that would trap all the heat it and ontop of this we placed all the dirt so it was completely air-tight. The steam from the clams/mussels would basically steam all the food; meat, bread, vegetables and cheese. We brought the table outside and started with an early entree of a delicious Cebiche Danni had made lastnight. At around 4pm everyone started to arrive; a Belgium girl, a guy from Argentina and a French guy and his mother/father/sister. We removed the tarp and slowly peeled back the layers and wow what a sight; perfectly steamed beans, melted cheese, bread and the highlight all the mussels and clams - we started eating the clams and mussels straight of the hot rocks and they were incredibly delicious. The smoke flavour was intwined in all the different foods and the mussels were some of the best I had ever eaten. Although I wasn't that hungry I ate and ate trying everything bar the bread and cheese. After lunch I headed to the beach with the dogs again and had another really nice walk and as it was a holiday today there were lots of families around which created a nice ambiance. By the afternoon the weather had changed and it had started to rain so we all huddled inside chatted and drank loads of tea. It was a little hard for me to have any conversation as we had 6 French speakers and 3 Spanish speakers and only really Xavier could speak English well enough to converse with me.