Ciudad De Vitoria Santiago

... working holiday". That said, I´ll still be going to Falls Festival for New Years, Big Day Out in January (where Muse should be playing) and hopefully working towards my helicopter license, just so I can officially wear aviators and a flight suit :-)

Have an awesome Xmas and New Year; I'll be thinking of you all!

P.S. Thankfully I wasn't with the following bus company...

... I said we would walk it. Come on, we had just been sitting upright for 9 hours, I wanted to stretch my legs! But she showed us the route and off we went after a pit stop at Starbucks. BTW, the coffee is NOT the same. and the muffin was kinda gross and cold. You could tell people there thought they were so trendy, but if only they knew what a legit Starbucks can offer!

Off we went on our 40 minute walk to Parque Arauco, a huge mall ...

... Reitweise vertraut geamcht und versucht, Kontakte zu potentiellen Pferdeverkäufern aufzubauen. Nun knüpfe ich da an, wo ich aufgehört hatte, und es gibt noch viel zu tun...

Auf dem Flug von Sydney nach Santiiago sauge ich die Landschaft auf, die unter mir vorbeizieht: Patagonische Gletscher, die schneebedeckten Anden, der Riese Aconcagua, höchster Berg auf dem amerikanischen Kontinent. Chile ist voller Schönheiten, und ...

... It was nice to have a chilled out day, especially since the living room was so comfy!

On our third day we decided to head to the park to take the gondola up to the top of the mountain and then maybe stop off at the zoo on the way back down. Unfortunately when we got there the gondola was closed for maintenance work so we decided to walk through the park and find the Zoo. After a 30 minute walk we arrived at the ...

... before crossing the roads! The city is also overrun by shopping malls - there seems to be one on every block.

A very interesting stop was the Museo Chileno de Arte Precolombino which contains ancient artefacts from the pre-colombian era as well as mummies of children that predate the Egyptian mummies by about 2500 years!

We took the furnicular rail up to the impressive Virgin Mary statue (Santiago's answer to the Christ Redeemer statue in Rio) and ...

... history...

it is really crazy which then sitting on a bus for 24hrs heading for Peninsula Valdes on the complete opposite side of the country gave me more than enough time to reflect.



The irony did not escape me as after eventually arriving on the coast that I was so far away from home sitting on a boat name "Na Nai'a" whereby the Argentinian owner told me it meant family of whales in Maori but ...

... and we waited for the real Hannah. Hannah came shortly after and we both got in the van to go to the hostel. He took us to a cash machine to get out some money but neither of us knew what the exchange rate was so asked him how much I'd need for 2 days. He said 200,000 pesos but I didn't think I would need loads so just got out 100,000 (which he said was about £25 - the start of his cunning plan). Hannah got out the same and we got back to ...

... of wine and a Pastel de Choclo, one of our favorite local dishes, that evening for dinner in Barrio Bellavista region. The next day we did a long day of walking for a city tour with a couple of museums and a fascinating chess tournament in the park. That evening, Chad found a lonely flyer on the table in our hostel, advertising a wine festival outside of town. Nobody seemed to know anything about it. We decided to be spontaneous, and ...

... The hosts were meaning it to good with us and soon nobody could eat anymore (even though there was still quite a lot of food left and the chilean meat was excellent) - With more wine, punch and southamerican rum the evening still went on into the early hours of the morning ... (and of course there was a lot of dancing - we are in southamerica ;))

... a layover in Santiago on my way to Mendoza. The view from Santiago airport is probably the worst in Chile, if not in entire South America, though it's not as depressing as the view from Lima airport unless you landed there at night. I was groggy after overnight flight from LA and ordered "some tea" in Spanish in the airport cafe. The waitress answered that I may be more specific with my request but I did not understand her really. The tea was served though somehow. On board I ...