South America - Santiago, Chile

---

Although we arrived in Santiago tired and half terrified after a very bumpy flight, we were really looking forward to our South American leg of the trip. Michelle managed to befriend a women in the Airport, who had no hostel booked and was altogether very scattered! She had wads of cash with her and ended up nearly walking out of arrivals without her bags!!

After a funny taxi ride to the hostel, we arrived! Our room was opposite the reception desk, so somewhat noisy! That night there was a massive storm in Santiago and things were flying everywhere - managed to get a pizza and then went back to bed.

We never thought jet lag could be sooooo bad ! We were wrecked the next day and Luke kept claiming it was the ‘man flu’. Had a bit of a wander around Santiago over the next day or two but really wasn’t mad about the city. It was really smoggy and the people were so grumpy, no one smiled! We did a wine tour one day to the Conches y Toro wine region, it was lovely and although they gave us mostly red wine to taste, the wine was pretty yummy! Luke drank most of mine though! Luke managed to bump into some people he knew from home on the trip…the last place we expected to see Irish people.

We also did an Andes tour - Luke was so excited because he thought there would be snow ! After a long journey up the mountain, passed a million corkscrew turns we reached the top and visited some of the ski resorts. Unfortunately a really bad mist came down and we didn’t see much at all! All the Brazilian people on the tour also started having a big row and tried to demand their money back because we hadn’t seen what we were meant to on the tour! We just laughed! Stopped off in a mall on the way back from the Andes tour and did a spot of shopping !!

---