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We left New Zealand at 6.30 pm on Sunday and after a 11 hour flight we arrived to Santiago at 2.30 on the same day! Very confusing this date line business... We were a bit of a mess, but had decided not to go to bed before the evening, because we wanted to prevent getting a bad jetlag. Our host Carlos came to meet us at the airport and kept us busy the whole day making sure we didn't get to bed at any abnormal time. We went out for lunch after which we met up with Carlos' friend Majid. We went up with a gondola to one of the biggest hills in the city, which had amazing views by night!

Next day we imagined we would get up at 10 am, but we simply couldn't bring ourselves to get up until 1 pm... After getting up and out of the apartment we faced our first big challenge on this continent. We had to recharge a sim card, that Carlos was kind enough to lend us. No one in the store spoke english so we had to try to survive with our spanish. Helena and I have both studied some Spanish in the past, but our Spanish is practically nonexistent. We actually took a Spanish textbook with us from Finland, that we were sure we were going to finish in a few months. (We're going to have so much time and nothing to do, right?). So we arranged for Helenas sister, Hanna to bring the second part of the same serie to Malaysia, when she came to see us. By the time we reached South America we were maybe somwhere half way in the first book... Well we did manage to recharge the simcard in the end. But we also decided it would be a good idea to take some Spanish lessons.

We spent 5 full days in Chile. The first few days we took it easy and tried to survive from the jetlag. We visited the Museum of Latinoamerican precolombian history, which contained all kinds old of artefacts by the Maya and the Inka and so on. We also went to see the famous wineyard of Concha y Toro and got to taste a few wines. A small disappointment was, that two out of the three wines we tried were ones you can get in Finland too...

The evenings we spent together with Carlos and Majid by going out for some tapas and drinks. Santiago has got a lot of both cool and modern and more traditional bars with traditional chilean music. We got to try the national drink, Pisco Sour, mmm! On Tuesday evening we cooked a Finnish dinner(mashed potatoes and meatballs, again) and had a night in watching movies.

On our last day in Chile we made a day trip to the coastal town of Valparaiso. The old town was really beautiful with old colourful wooden houses. The day was spiced up by a demonstration held by students. It was really peaceful though, so nothing too exciting. Last night in Santiago we went out with who else than Carlitos and Majid! We went to a really nice outdoor terrace area with a lot of bars. The evening ended in a salsa club, with live music and a real South American feel to it. For some reason we didn't get to bed until 5 am and had to get up at 7 am to catch our bus to Argentina. Ouch!

After only five days in Chile I don't really feel like I have a very clear picture of what the country is like. Walking around in the city center on Santiago I had a feeling, that I could've been somewhere in Southern Europe as well as in South America. What made these 5 days special however was the fact, that we were staying with Carlos in Santiago. We had a great time and a lot of interesting discussions about Chile and Finland. I hope we'll meet again! And one thing is for sure: On this continent you just have to speak español!

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