Santiago trips

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Hi folks, back now in NZ but here are some photos of the last few days.

I have included the photo where my GPS dissapeared, looking at the photo now I dont know why I bothered!

Terry and Sheena were given the responsibility to sort out the tour for the last day, the plane did not leave till midnight so we had a full day. They did a bloody good job and organised both a trek and a lift to the airport.

We were picked up at 6:45 and driven to the andes for a little walk - 5 hours. It was great, again we had brilliant sunshine and needed lots of sunscreen - quite different to the weather that greeted us this morning in Auckland! The intention was to wander up the hill to see the San francisco hanging glacier and the les morales glacier. As you can see the hanging one was impressive - a climber was lost last year and still has not been found, they presume he fell down a crevas and will appear one day.

There was still a bit of snow around as you can see, this snow proved to be too much of a temptation for the less mature members or member of our group - Ruth started throwing snowballs! Of course I resisted for at least 30 seconds before I had to retaliate! The battle went on for several hours with both sides scoring hits - as the author I claim the best hits - one down her neck which ended up filling her bra - I did not put it there it was just luck!, My best shot was a handfull shoved down her trousers and then briefly rubbed in! Yes it was childish but great fun. It is definetly hard walking across snow, especially dodging snownballs. The views up there were great, wonderfull, spectacular, tremendous etc. We were also treated to 9-10 condors, hard to tell exactly how manhy as they were well above us, apparently a puma had killed a horse up there and this was attracting the condors - whatever the truth it was good to see them soaring over the hills.

After the walk, we headed back to Santiago along the way stopping for strudel and coffee at a small restaraunt. The road back was blocked by the police at one point as the Germans were making film in a tunnel to the side of the road. It was a nice stoppage as the van was very hot, no airconditioning at all and the temperature was very warm. To aggravate the heat a bit more, we had to keep the windows up because of the dust from the trucks on the road. Once we made it back to Santiago, we picked up our bags from the apartment and then Pedro the guide took us to the airport which was really great. One more ride and we would be home.

Ruth had a bad flight back, for some reason her seat was closer to the seat in front than others, we measured it and is was aroudn 4 inches smaller, this meant she could only just get her legs in and to the add insult to injury there was some sort opf box under the seat in front, when guy in front put his seat back he was literally in her face. I think she is going to complain as it was a very long 13 hours!

Well that is all for now, I will pick the best photos from the group and load more later - I can now as I have a new laptop, which works!

Ian

PS. Any one thinking of going somewhere exciting and fun - go to SA - the whole trip was brilliant including the scenery and the travelling companions

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