A 38 hour day just to get to Chile!!
Trip Start
Jun 11, 2008
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242
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Trip End
May 14, 2009
Santiago,
Chile
Wednesday, January 28, 2009
We were up at 7.45am *Aussie Time( to get a shuttle to the airport to catch our 10.45am flight. We stopped off in Auckland first for an hour, before re-boarding the same plane over to Santiago. The flights themselves took about 15 hours, but we landed in Santiago at 12.25pm!!!
So we left 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 finishings. We got ourselves a double room (with shared bathroom facilities), with a balcony view as well.
The hostel itself has loads of outdoor courtyards....inside the building! Weird. It also has a fantastic back garden area that has a small swimming pool and a poolside bar! There is also free internet here. It's a really nice place.
First thing I did was sample one of the local beers "Escudor", which was only 60p!
We had a walk to the nearby supermarket (even though we were completely shattered after our flights) and bought a few bits. Everything is totally Spanish. No English signs or speakers. This is going to be really good as we will have to learn the language to get by. It was really interesting trying to work out what food was what, just by reading labels.
As we came out the supermarket, we saw a Domino's pizza p[lace!! As we were both knackered and couldn't be arsed to cook, this was the place to go! We got there during Happy Hour as well, so ended up with a huge pizza, chicken wings, garlic breadsticks and a 2.5L bottle of coke!!! We couldn't manage it all so had to save some for tomorrows lunch!
All the menu was also in Spanish, but we managed to work it out (you know us when it comes to food!!). The only thing we got wrong was the free bread sticks - we thought they were going to be wedges!!
We finally collapsed into bed about 9pm as we had been awake for over 24 hours!!
We also have an idea of a plan for South America now...although this will probably change!!
We are going to head south for a week, then up to San Pedro de Atacama. We hope to head into Bolivia over the salt flats around the middle of February and then onto La Paz and finally Cuzco. We should get to Cuzco for the 2nd March, to give us a week to relax before doing the Inca Trail. After that, we will head back down through Bolivia to Argentina and get to Buenos Aires for the beginning of April. After a visit to Uruguay, we will head up through the Iguassu falls and on to Rio.
We have initially booked our flight back home for the 28th April. This will then get us home for the Bank Holiday weekend and loads of BBQ's and beers!! (Get the Barbie ready Suzie!!). This will then also allow us time to hopefully visit my Sister in Malta - if they are still there!!! That will then complete 11 months of travelling - it's gone soooooo fast!
