Diego De Velazquez Santiago

... After I take the best shower in the world we have the traditional Chillean lunch. Delicioso! Meat, potatoes, and bread. Soccer game tonight.<br><br>Futbol not soccer? We venture to the stadium 2 hours before game time. Heaps of people. The process to get in the stadium is unreal! One gate, show your ticket, gate two show your ...

... though, aided by the fact that Chile qualified for the world cup finals while we were there: we got involved with the flag waving and horn honking like a couple of locals. The city looks like it's going to fall into the sea, built on steep hills next to the Pacific, with funiculars all over the place so you don't have to tackle the (admittedly gruelling, or James found so anyway) stairs. <br><br>Anyway, next stop Auckland! <br>

... and eating and just having a good time...<br><br>i cant believe this part of the trip is over!!! it seems unreal that we have come so far, and ecuador seems like ages ago. i have had a great time though of course and hopefully can cope with being stationary for such a long time......<br><br>things i have learned, dare i say mastered.....<br>1. squatting and accepting that toliet paper is not an ensured commodity <br>2. accpeting nausea 24-7 ...

... around. They too had just finished a trip up to Cuzco and Machu Picchu and were heading back to collect Wayne´s things in the capital before heading home. We had a nice conversation around Franklin´s big kitchen table about our travels and hit it off. While exchanging tips and info, we asked Wayne about Valparaiso. He said that they were planning to go on Friday and if we could fit it into our plans, he would be happy to be our tour guide- an offer we quickly ...

... back to the hostel about an hour late and the bed was ready. It was a 12 person dorm and I was lucky to get a bottom bunk so wouldn't need to be mountain climbing in the night . Had a wander to the local bottle shop and got a carton of the cheapest red wine and a bottle of coke as it's the easiest way to get chatting to someone if you can offer em a drink ;-) Let Franceso the reception woman have a red wine as it's always useful to be on first ...

... Cup futball qualifying match between Chile and Uruguay on TV. Slightly further north, we reached the beach town of Vina Del Mar. Although, being fall in Chile, the air was a little nippy, and the water downright freezing, we certainly managed to waste a couple of days lying on the beach. For the first time in a long time, we had a TV in our room at the hostel, and easily watched 4-5 movies in 2 days...don't judge until you've walked in ...

... 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 whole summer and at the end I was seriously concerned that the journey would never end as the days were running in circles and there was always something beyond the next horizon. But when I saw dark and gloomy southern sky across the Magellan Straight, I suddenly realized that the Earth is not that big and round and that the edge of the world is near and it's time to come back home. Back home I came and the story has ended without yielding me a single clue of what it was about.

... a food critics list of top Santiago restaurants. Europeo is supposedly the top restaurant in town, but I wasn´t able to make a reservation online - that left the choices between Puerto Fuy and Sukalde - I decided to go with Puerto Fuy because its cuisine was influenced by Ferran Adria, the leader of the molecular gastronomy movement (see blog entry entitled "We felt like judges on the Iron Chef!" http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog ...

... came to nearly 25 quid! <br><br>I suspect that we were being ripped off, with some creative accounting, but neither of us could face the prospect of kicking off in Spanish. Plus we knew we were at about 20% brain capacity so we might have got the prices wrong or something.<br><br>The worst thing was that our stomachs must have still been full of pisco sours &amp; beer, so we'd hardly touched our food. We thought we were hungry but ...