: At the age of 43, Amberley school teacher Ally Mountain decided to set off on a global adventure with just £5,000 to take her travelling for a year. In her latest dispatch she samples a potent local brew which brings back memories of the Frocester Beer Festival.

Day 144, Castro, Chiloe, Chile

THE rural island of Chiloe lies off the south west coast of mainland Chile, easily accessible on a short ferry journey from Puerto Montt.

I am staying in a hostel on a small beach in the village of Chonchi after spending the last couple of days staring across the bay to the rolling green fields around the coastline.

Last Sunday, while sharing a plate of delicious fresh mussels with my English friend Colin, who has flown over to travel with me for a month from his home on the Cook Islands, we noticed a sign advertising a fiesta in a place called Yutuy.

So we wandered down to the harbour, paid our 1,800 pesos to the boy on the launch, received a life jacket in return and set off on a 15 minute journey across the sound.

Colin fancied a beer and alighting from the boat at a tiny coastal village we were relieved to find two men selling a local brew, chicha, in plastic coke bottles.

Chicha is made from either grapes or apples and looks and tastes like Gloucestershire scrumpy.

We were soon seated at a wooden trestle table in a field, drinking out of plastic cups with the smell of roasting lamb wafting under our noses.

Children were frolicking in the sun and traditional music was playing.

For a moment, I thought I was back home in an English summer which is uncanny really because my last weekend at home was spent at the Frocester Beer Festival with Colin.

We had a great afternoon with two new Chilean friends, Sylvia and Henry.

When the cheecha ran out we bought melons with the crowns sliced off and topped them up with Chilean white wine as we had watched the locals doing.

By 8pm there were toothless campesinos so drunk that they were rebounding off policemen like pinballs.

This was alright because the policemen were drunk too.

As the delicious lamb juices ran down my chin, listening to Sylvia singing Beatles songs between slurps from her melon and watching all the smiling faces, I remembered the simple pleasures of home.

By contrast, this December, having trekked and lived from my tent for seven days, I was hiking along the snout of Glaciar Grey, part of the massive ice field Patagonica Hielo Sur, in Nacional Parque Torres Del Paine, Chile.

In El Calafate, Argentina, I took a boat trip right up to the edge of the spectacular Glaciar Perito Merino.

On Boxing Day I trekked and climbed for eight hours to two powder blue glacial lakes beneath the twin towers of Mount Fitzroy in Nacional Parque Los Glaciares. In the New Year I cycled 65kms around the Circuito Chico from Bariloche in the Lake District before arriving in Santiago, Chile on the night the election results came through.

I joined the throng of people celebrating the victory of Michelle Bachelet, Chiles first female president, who came out to the rostrum and gave her inaugural speech to the people.

After so much excitement and physical challenge, its great to share the simple pleasures of a summer weekend with a warm and friendly people who celebrate their community in much the same way as we do in Gloucestershire.

Ah well, I have to sign off now as tomorrow I'm climbing up a volcano. Hasta luego.