Neruda Hotel Santiago

... to DC. I feel I am ready to come home as I miss my family, friends and the luxuries of American life. Not to mention I never again want to see these clothes that I have been wearing for 3 months straight. To those who have been reading I thank you for taking an interest in my travels and keeping my "times visited" number high as I thought only my mom would read this blog....I hope all have enjoyed reading and stay tuned for more travel blogs of other exotic destinations. Adios!<br>

... amp; spraying 400 litres of deodorant in the room!<br><br>We were all so so tired &#8211; Fitzy had 2 hours sleep as the guys snoring too didn't help anything. The 2 girls were leaving for Easter island so he was awake and got up to say goodbye &#8211; I was so tired I couldn&#8217;t bring myself to get up.<br><br>He couldn&#8217;t of got far with those short legs. Jack was saying as we couldn&#8217;t track down Horse to get the Micro Mini Bus on the road.<br><br>Took us about 2 hours ...

... deal of restoration going on. For lunch, we have a 'bucket' of meat and potatoes - Argentinian style. The meat is placed over coals so it continues to cook once it is served. This is before the influenza outbreak, so we are not on pork watch! The meals delicious. Madame hands her CV in whilst we're there and she is told she can start work the following day. I am so relieved and she is ecstatic, we celebrate with ...

... is going BA. Once everyone is almost thru the gate, Kev asks if this is indeed the flight to Santiago. We all crowd onto a bus that takes 50 yards. This plane, in Plunas defense, was a beautiful, brandnew Bombadier 300. We arrived in Chile around 9pm (almost a 12 hour day of traveling 1200 miles, if we could fly in a straight line). We are in search of food and water. (No beer this time). The hostess tells us, yes just around the corner for provisions. We ...

... offered by being high atop this hill...<br><br>After deciding that I couldn't spend any more time up here, I took the funicular down and walked back to the hostel, got my duffel bag and hailed a taxi that took me to the impressive S. Borja bus terminal where I'd catch my bus. Santiago and Chile continue to impress me with its infrastructure...<br>

... and arrived home safely in a taxi at 1am (kick off was 10pm!). Chatting to fellow backpackers we discovered that the best way to explore South America is by bus. So we now find ourselves on an 11 hour bus journey heading south to Pucon. The buses here are clean, comfortable and relatively cheap. Good thing really as we´ll need to take a lot of bus trips to get right down into Chilean and Argentinian Patagonia, which is the new plan! Ciao.

... in though and we didn't have much time, so we may do it another day. After a stroll around the parkland area, we headed back to the hostel. We decided to walk back again and this introduced us to a few squeaky bum moments including some dodgy looking backstreets, some car dodging crossing a motorway and a polite married discussion about who had read the map wrong!! We all know who that was......don't we?! As we had been out all day ...

... The meal was pretty average. These late night meals are getting out of hand - despite having only a single course for dinner tonight, and only a few people ordering dessert, our meal lasted from 20:30 until 23:30. I wouldn't complain about a long, drawn out dinner if it involved multiple courses, excellent food, or if we didn't have to wake up at 5:30 tomorrow to catch a bus. But for this kind of meal? No thanks! But I suppose that I ...

... br><br>So we chatted away to our new friends and after polishing off a bottle of very nice Sauvignon Blanc I even plucked up the guts to speak to the German guys. <br><br>They actually turned out to be surprisingly interesting, as they both raced in dragon boat teams, which is ...