I could have been a top notch spy. People confess the most amazing secrets to me, even when I am not fishing for those nuggets. I must look trustworthy because I sit there with a video camera or a tape recorder while the stories pour out.

Style-wise, Valle Nevado is what can only be described as 'hip international.' Brazilians, Chileans and Europeans make the place seem like an electronic music festival transported to an remote Andean valley. Huge speakers blare out thumping, bass-heavy music, while promotoras stalk the staircases selling everything from Red Bull to mobile phones.

In the U.S. and much of Europe, the sale, distribution, and use of offset printers are watched closely by anti-counterfeiting units. In Peru, however, the offset industry is a free-for-all.

Getting to Valle Nevado is half the fun. A serpentine road from Santiago wriggles up the spine of Andean peak for an hour, then traverses a valley and finally up again. The hotel is perched on a rugged mountain crag at 3,000m: no other sign of human development is visible from this spot, which is close to the Argentinean border.

There's nothing very exotic about classic Chilean street food. Imagine a hot dog hidden beneath an explosion of mayonnaise and ketchup. Cost? Twenty-five to 30 pence. This is the completo, an all-purpose solution to breakfast, lunch or, once, the curiously English teatime snack enjoyed by Chileans of all ages.