Lafayette Hotel Santiago

... meeting for a fourth tour, which began today, but we had sent our apologies and a request to go on the wine tour excursion, we visited two wineries on the excursion, the first was were Castillo del Diablo is made, we visited the cellar and even saw the devil himself!!!! before heading back upstairs to try a red and white wine!!! Yey!!! After a quick lunch we arrived at the second winery, a small family run business that we think ...

... been given a poisoned breakfast in Lima. We have survived all manner of local foods in Ecuador &amp; Peru but the Limenos were determined to have the last laugh. <br><br>To cap a perfect day, Lauren arrives and takes us to an excellent Pizza restaurant where Lauren and I tuck into a huge meal and Debbie looks at her slice of garlic bread as if it is the last thing she wants to see, and refuses a glass of wine!!<br><br>We spend the next couple of days with Lauren being ...

... their 3-day labour weekend. Visited a museum (after mistaking an adult-cinema for the Snatiago Municipal Museumo .... yea, easily done aye anna!? Grabbed ourselves &lt;italiano unincompleto - basically a frankfurt with guacamole, mayo, tomato, and ketchup. surprisingly good when you realise you feel totally shattered and realise its about 2am at home! Have navigated the metro - thanks to my tokyo training "no ...

... Santiago is a huge city and holds probably half the population in Chile. I went to the Hotel Rent A Room and found myself in a tiny apartment like room with three other girls. One girl named Sara wouldn't stop speaking Spanish to me even though she was from Minnesota and I soon found out that she was the girl that was going to be living with me. The nightlife was fun because it didn't even get busy until after ...

... as an olive oil grove and factory (which stank) and a grappa maker. We disgusted the woman in the smaller winery by necking back our taster wine before she had a chance to tell us how to smell it and swirl it around, looking for tear stains from the fluid as it ran down the glass, but we got an extra glass of wine out of it - so we didn´t mind. The wine was so good and at 4 pound a bottle on average, a real bargain there. There are some lovely restaurants in ...

... at 10.45am, did 15 hours of flying, then landed 1 hour 40 ins later at 12.25pm!! This was too much for my fragile little mind to handle!! This dateline has got a lot to answer for! Time wise, we are now 3 hours behind the UK (after being 11 hours ahead earlier!!) We jumped on a local bus to take us to our hostel - La Casa Roja (think this means The Red House). This really is a beautiful old mansion-style house with amazing high ceilings and old wooden ...

... and male bathrooms were marked by roses, and dried/shriveled-up hot peppers, respectively - being male, I would've preferred the men's room to be labeled with fresh, vibrant hot peppers, but maybe that's just me! Given that most of the other members of the tour had just arrived in Chile today, everybody decided to take a taxi, with the exception of myself and BH&amp;M (the "M" no longer stands for Monica, it stands for Martin, our tour leader ...

... br>...this is the Auckland Harbour Bridge, not quite as impressive as its namesake in Sydney...<br><br> <br><br>...a view across the bay, over some of the business district...<br><br> <br><br>...and back over the residential part of the city, showing some of the parkland.<br><br> <br><br>Katie really doesn't like heights, but ...

... to dunedin with them to see penguins and royal<br>albatrosses, we practically did all the exspensive stuff with them<br>which was quite handy, like bungy jumping and white water rafting in<br>queestown, we also went over to fiorland and doubtful sound which was<br>very remote, and went onto the fox glacier. After they left us in<br>christchurch went to the cadburys chocolate factory at easter(for<br ...