Hotel Restaurant Cap Ducal Providencia

... and the drivers here are really good - they even stop for pedestrians which rarely happens in Montreal! I should be loosing weight with all the walking we do, but the the pastries and ice cream are just packing on me. I just love the ice cream here and the yummy pastries that are stuffed with brown filling - I will have to find out what it is called...but I know it is very good!

... headed off to one of the other options, much better. One the first night we checked out the old town which was beautiful and full of arty types. The town has many steep hills with funicular cars which run up them, most of which are over 100 years old. We met a local graphic designer and tested out his recommendation for dinner. Day two involved Vina del Mar, which is a beach town and we bronzed ourselves ...

... and the theme of the film, solitude. The story manages to weave through social classes and their distinctions without falling into clichés, just confusion. Such is life, a comedy of airs and errors. The Chango Spasiuk-infused soundtrack was perfect. The Vina festival had its moments but largely failed from an outsider's point of view. First and foremost a festival should be festive. I suppose it was if you knew where the parties were ...

... buildings in every colour of the rainbow. The hills are so steep that it has 15 outdoor assensors (elevators) all around the city to take its inhabitants from sea level to hill-top where most of the homes are. In the postcards, the multi-coloured neighbourhoods look very cute and picturesque, but in reality, the city is pretty rough around the edges and the buildings are essentially a hodge-podge of brightly painted corrugated metal structures that are literally ...

... of running away from us he actually approached us. Joe said that he wanted us to feed him but that we shouldn't feed him. After taking some great snap shots we continued on...sure enough our fox friend, Pepe we called him, was following us. We then went the other direction and he still followed us!! I wanted to hug him and take him home, well kinda... I was also scared he would give me rabies. After about 15 minutes of the little guy following us he ...

... want it anyway and so ordered our main meals. As we waited we mused as to whether or not she knew that we didn´t want the menu of the day. As our 2 main courses arrived we breathed a sigh of relief, only to see the waitress return to our table 5 minutes later with·yes, you guessed it·the menu of the day, a big plate of lamb stew and rice. We must have looked like such fatties with our three main courses in front of us! Not wanting to ...

... of bins, the city`s level of cleanliness was very high. It is a very modern city which is due, in part, to the number of earthquakes they have endured. This means that after every earthquake, they have to rebuild the city, generally improving on it every time. It is also the first city, since Mexico city, that provides wheelchair accessibility. Santiago can be divided up into a number of sections..there`s the going-out district of Bella Vista (usually known as the Zona Rosa in ...

... parks which we spent a lot of time exploring. We don't know if it is Spring fever or what, but everywhere you look in these lovely parks you see couples making out. This is not just limited to the parks: street corners, coffee shops, sidewalk cafes... Everywhere you look you see couples connected at the lips. Couples of every age from 15 to 65 we saw smooching ...

... We eventually made an excuse that we were tired and left the drinks to go and collect our washing - at about 11pm. Once collected we carried our washing back to the new hotel only to almost bump into the others just getting out of a taxi - as we had supposedly only just arrived in Santiago and there is no possible way we would have been able to drop off our washing anywhere we then had to hide around the corner and try and sneak into our hotel - what a good start! Moral of ...

... to do the advanced...deep dive..no problem....and all the rest...just sign the piece of paper and watch the boys turn somersaults on the beach.....lovely job and more motorbikes and girls and sunsets and horses....up a mountain and along a beach this time and the boat in the squall because of the inflator hose failure... was it catalina!!! where henry morgan went before me but ran away too back to san andreas fror the "diving"....just said no