Diego De Almagro Santiago Cent

Hello from a balmy Santiago! I'm leaving South America tomorrow morning for New Zealand. Since I last wrote we've spent a week in Mendoza province before we crossed the border into Chile, probably the world's oddest shaped country.

Mendoza gave us more opportunities to get out in the fresh air, which we were both very keen for after a long spell in the urban jungles of BA, Rosario and Cordoba. We managed to fit in an epic ...

... what we can do in such little time.

It's been strange to pack my backpack again and to put it back on my shoulders. Everything was spread out like there's no tomorrow, I needed quite a while to sort things out, I hadn't realized I had so much stuff in my packs! :) But after that I was happy, it was good to feel again my old travelling buddy on my shoulders. We were going in for another round!

I've got my plane tonight at almost 11 PM. Farewell South America!

... goodbyes to the Kiwi girls as they were heading to Mendoza whilst the roads were open, then headed out to go up the hill. We caught the little train up past the zoo which was closed. A lot of things all seemed to be closed on Mondays! Then wondered around at the top, it was a really cloudy day so it was hard to see the city and the mountains in the distance.
Then followed the road down the ...

... The restaurant was near the base of one of Valparaiso´s many ¨acensores¨ that take you from the lower section of the city, up the steep hillsides to the neighborhoods above. We rode the acensore near the port and at the top, toured the Valparaiso Naval History Museum which was full of artifacts from famous Naval Admirals and battles that shaped Chile´s history. The highlight in my opinion, was a collection swords used during battles and some ceremonial ones ...

... back to work for one day before the weekend?? I like their attitude ;) Only downside is that I will be doing double time at school next Mon-Wed. Brain overload. So now I have a 4 day weekend coming up - what to do?! So many options. I set off to look at central Santiago. I just wandered around, followed the river and found myself right where I wanted to be: Plaza del Armas. It is hard to believe that this was the ...

After another annoying border crossing and 35 hours straight in 3 buses and a taxi (not including all the time wasted sitting in bus stations waiting for the next one!), we arrived to Santiago exhausted and more than a little smelly. We were invited to stay at Camila's and Raimundo's house, who are friends of one of Caro's aunt and general family friends. Although they had been expecting us we were way to embarassed to arrive straight there, so we booked a hostel for the ...

... translation: tamales with nothing in them... just the masa wrapped in the corn husk things... so funny!) Michael and I went searching for a church nearby to go to Mass after the lunch... no luck though, all the Sunday afternoon Masses don't start until about 8 or 8:30 here! South Americans stay up REALLY late... eat dinner at around 9pm then hang out till after midnight... just on a regular night. All in all, we had a pretty great weekend...

The decision has been made to stay in Santiago until Saturday and basically do b*gger all. It's 30-35 degrees here and clear blue skies. It's going to remain this way for the foreseeable future as well. We have a nice pool and bar area here at the hostel - what more do we need? We have a hectic 3 months coming up, so we are going to have a holiday first, by the ...

... encounter with a Chilean man who was apparantly collecting money for charity. The man had recognised us as tourists and asked us where we were from. After answering "Wales", he broke into a 'pre-programmed' Welsh sentance and began showing us pictures of Prince Charles! Iwan was somewhat unimpressed by the connection to the Royal family, however the poor man was clearly trying his best to impress, so we gave him a couple of pesos and quickly headed on ...

... Barber Bernstein and and some other N American composers. Strangely there were no programmes on sale so I had no idea of the violin concerto. However the West Side Story overture was excellent. The central market is huge. One section is devoted to the sale of fish and next it are small restaurants providing excellent meals at a very reasonable cost. I had a soup followed by sea bass. Both were excellent. However all customers ...