Dominica Hostel Santiago

... taking the metro to the west of the city and walking back through the middle to the east where we were staying.

Santiago is a remarkably unremarkable city. Itīs clean, with good transport, modern shops, nice squares and large parks but there`s nothing that gives it a distinctive feel. Renee and I enjoyed wandering around for a good 4 hours taking the sights in but we were more overcome with the modernity of the city rather than the exceptional sights or things to do ...

... an extra bottle of bubly to celebrate!

We decided to chill out for a few days before venturing on any further expeditions as we felt the last week or 2 in Peru had been pretty full-on with excursions and stuff. Plus we thought the coolest part of Chile is probably the south, and we will visit that in the first 4-week holiday to Argentina/Patagonia we can arrange after returning back to London (?!!). So what did we do in Chile? Well, just a number ...

... shoes!!! A 7 hour day bus shipped us north to La Serena. The city had a nice beach but it was cold and cloudy when we were there, and the beach was deserted. The highlights of this town were the two tours we took. The first night, we took an astronomy tour, as this area in Chile is known for its consistently clear skies and observatories. We jumped into the tour van, and immediately became concerned, when a group of 7 young girls piled ...

... that I want to see. It looks unlikely that I will even go to Paraguay now that I donīt have work to take me there. Instead Boliva is looking increasingly likely to be added to my list of Chile, Argentina, possibly Uraguay, Peru and Equador. It all looks so feasible looking at the map but I keep reminding myself that this continent is HUGE! For now I am going to stick to my plans to head to Tierra Del Fuego and see what happens from there.

I have exciting news; on our flight from Auckland to Santiago, we discovered something: Time travel is possible! We left Auckland at 17.25 on the 9th Feb and managed to arrive in Santiago almost 5 hours earlier at 12.45. The unfortunate result of this is jet lag as we have never experienced before. We arrived at the hostel and slept in the afternoon, our first mistake. We woke up that evening to find that it was Pisco Sours night and were fed the ...

... I was gazing at the incredible mountain chain - the andes - up to nearly 7000 meters the mountains where appearing right next to the plane ... Soon after we passed the highest of these mountains we were starting to descend to Santiago, what reminded me of the narrow valley landing in Innsbruck I experienced a long time ago ...

... of malicious locals had directed us to the wrong place trying to get us to pay for their friend's services rather than the official operation - although Chile is quite advanced, we were still in the developing world. No matter, we finally got a ride out to a beautiful set of islands with high rock cliff faces, blue lagoons, and hidden beaches: a bit like the channel islands off of Santa Barbara complete with seal colonies, tons of birds ...

... Before stepping out to the taxi, I added "I'm not just saying this, because I'll probably never see you again. But without doubt, you are the most beautiful Chilean I had met. I only wanted to tell you this." Sometimes when you encounter a lady as beautiful and sweet as this, you just want to tell her how exactly how beautiful she is. Or go to the bathroom 4 times, just to get a closer look :) But what can I say - I have a small bladder!

... couldn't eat.

The main problem was that I simply hadnīt brought that much cash out, so I had to walk all the way back to the hostel to get more money so that we could settle the food bill! Katie complained that she had to sit there like a lemon, but I'd rather do that than trek back to the hostel!

In the end we paid a lot for very little, but at least the food was tasty.

We're quite sad to leave Chile ...

... friendliness we were shown by everyone. We tried to offer petrol money but he wouldn't hear of it.

We ate at Las Vacas Gordas (the brilliantly named Fat Cows). This was just a walk from our hotel which was great. We had an excellent steak and a lovely red wine and then waddled back to the hotel.




Next morning we were out and about again. We had one whole day to cover as much of Santiago as ...