A fond farewll to South America

---

Hi all,

So I'm back in the western world. We said a fond farewell to South America on Saturday night and hopped on a plane to New Zealand.

The final part of our South American leg took us to the Chilean capital, Santiago. The city itself is qutie low-rise for a captial but it's sprawl is immense. On the whole the city had a fairly laidback feel to it and was reasonably pleasant.
We arrived in the afternoon and spent the rest of the day generally sightseeing and visiting a museum. We then had our final meal and night out with the GAP group we were travelling with. Needless to say a pretty decent night ensued (those of you with facebook may see some photos of this at some point). The following morning Will and I set out to check into our new hostel, the rest of the day was pretty much spent napping after the previous evenings shenanigans.
Thursday took us to a nearby port town of Valpariaso. An interesting place to say the least. It is surrounded on all its land sides by really steep hills, the parts of town built on these hills have to be reached by vernicular railway. All a bit strange. It is also the dodgiest place I've been to so far, I felt like I had to watch my step most of the time. We did aim to take in the nearby beach resort of Vina del Mar but time got the better of us. Still a good day out.
The following 2 days generally involved more wandering and sightseeing, there wasn't actually that much to see and do in Santiago itself and fligths probably conspired to keep us there a day or two too long.

Having arrived in New Zealand I'm a bit sad to leave South America, there is so much more I want to see and do there, particularly Argentina. I enjoyed far more than I expected to be honest. We met some great people on the GAP tour and have some great memories. Its also strange actually understanding everything again, you kinda get used to muddling through with broken Spanish and the other persons broken English. I keep having to stop myself greeting everyone with Ola and saying Gracias instead of Thanks!

Our New Zealand leg got underway with a 13 hour flight across the Pacific ocean and the International Dateline (this particular invention robbed me of Easter Sunday so I hope you all had a good one!). Our flight touched down at around 4am NZ time, a truly stupid hour. After kicking our heels in the airport for a few hours we headed to our hostel and dumped our bags. We then headed out in search of breakfast and some sights.
Today we went up the Sky Tower (a large telecoms tour that dominates Auckland's skyline) and went across the bay to the suburb of Devonport.
Auckland itself has a very laidback feel for a large city and is a pretty pleasant place. It isn't exactly 'happening' as far as major cities go but then again I don't think that is what it's aiming for.
We pick up our campervan tomorrow and beginning our tour around NZ. As Will can't drive I'll will be sole bearer of driving responsibilities so wish me luck with that one!

I know I promised photos but this PC is so rubbish I'm not sure it could handle the strain but rest assured some will be uploaded at the earliest opportunity.

Well farewell for now,
Mike

---