Donde Claudio Santiago

... to write my memoirs, sit in coffee shops and look demure or buy some awful hat and go shopping for apples in the local market.

Discover there is no part of the wooden floor that does not creak, you step, it creaks, you lean, it creaks, you breathe, you ****, even think, it creaks. Glad I am on the top floor, poor people below me must be beside themselves, ah well, time to put on the i-pod, crank up the volume and boogie to Whitney as I empty the fat ...

... as well!

The flight was good - the length didnt bother me at all. The lack of sleep seriously has. I took 1/4 of a sleeping tablet which made me drowsy for about 2 hours but other than that, not much sleep at all. Maybe and hour in total. Meh.

Going to hang out here for a bit and will log on again a bit later on.

Love F

XXX

"""""""""""
Doh! No showers. Ah well. Once I have my feet again ...

... with English speaking and Spanish subtitles and then randomly Quantum of Solace dubbed in German with Spanish subtitles. So we saw more films than we understood but did a pretty good job at guessing what was going on. However instead of picking up any Spanish during the dubbed films I think I just improved my lip reading abilities.

For whatever reason I slept incredibly well through the night and so before I knew it the first part of the trip was over ...

... be enough to get us through our days in Chile.

On arrival at the hostel at about 4am we were greeted by Jose the night watchman.
The hostel is amazing. The building itself is quite old with high ceilings, yet it's as if a wooden chalet has been built inside. The beds are incredibly comfy and even though we were in an 8 bed dorm, it felt really private. They were bunk beds yet you could sit ...

... t like to think what would happen if they did that in Glasgow city centre! After 3 nights in the city we decided to head south in search of volcanos and lakes. The friendly man in the bus station laughed when we said Pucon and said it rains a lot there, we just smiled and thought does he not know where we're from!!! So the next morning we boarded the bus in our semi-cama seats which basically means they recline further, we had an 11 hour bus journey to ...

Our original plan was to head back into Bariloche, (Argentina) from Pucon, before heading north. However, we decided since we will be heading there for ski season, we’d skip it out for now and bus it to Santiago instead (saving valuable pages in the passport too – we now have 7 stamps for Chile and Argentina). We took an overnight bus to Santiago, which was fine apart from the annoying ...

... the 70% raw product. Our lips and throat burned for hours after that! Then, they gave us a shot of the 40% refined product for sale...after the first shot, it tasted like grape juice! Lastly, they gave us a Mango Sour, a 12% cooler made from pisco and mango. The next morning we hoofed it to the bus station for a 7 hour drive to Copiapo where we planned to do some hiking in the surrounding National Parks. Upon arrival though, we found ...

... different way, the favourite being to purchase the required chapters online and print them off. The next couple of days were very lazy and we decided that the stress of selling the van in the previous week was also taking it's toll. We amused ourselves by chatting to other guests or taking short walks into the city to idly look around some more. We also found a few bits of information in the Lonely Planet guides in the hostel. We decided to ...

... blessings, some inscribed on marble tablets, others on little pieces of paper stuffed in cracks on the wall. That evening we met up with Emma for a pre-pasta pisco sour (the national spirit) and got to hear all her stories about Peru and Bolivia. This left us both excited and apprehensive...apparently we had better make the most of hot showers, paved roads and good food while we can! Despite this it sounds like an amazing experience and I ...

... see why it gets mediocre reviews. Valparaiso, on the other hand, is an old historic Port city closeby (2 hours by bus) which does have its own unique vibe. Its a pretty cool, chilled out place with beautiful port views out on to the ocean. Place is built on the sides of hills with all these ascensors or elevators to take you up the sides of these hills to your destination. They are certainly unique and give the place something you ...