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Hi all, very behind on my blog now as i´m in Bolivia so hope i can remember as far back as New Zealand....
....We were due to fly out of Auckland to Santiago on 24 June but just as we were at the gate and about to board the plane we were given an arrival card and told to collect our luggage! Not very informative at all but we eventually discovered that the plane we were due to fly on had been struck by lightning on it´s way in to Auckland eeekkkkk - don´t worry Carolyn, no one was hurt and the plane landed safely :o), so our flight had been cancelled and we were then transported in coaches to a very posh hotel called Rendez-Vous where we spent the night and had a 3 course meal courteousy of the airline and a gorgeous soak in the bath, think that´s the cleaniest we´ve been since we left home!
A couple of Irish boys we´d met in Queenstown were in Auckland and we hadn´t had chance to see them before we left so got in touch with them and although they tried to persuade us into having one last night
out, we opted for a night in with a couple of bottles of vodka and drinking games which was such a ridiculous idea considering we got to bed about 3.30am and our wake up call for our flight was at 5.15am!!!! We did manage to drag ourselves out of bed, had to queue for over an hour to check in and thought we might be able to sleep on the flight but oh no, we were awake for every second of the 10 1/2 hour flight as we were sat close to 3 babies who each took it in turns to scream the plane down!
Wednesday 25 June was the strangest and longest day ever! We left our hotel in Auckland at 6am and arrived in Santiago at 6am on the same day. We found our way to the hostel we´d booked which looked, in the dark, like a bit of a dump and a bit eerie. We had our own room which was absolutely freezing as the hostel was not heated but we thought after a couple of hours sleep all might look a bit more welcoming so we set the alarm for 11am but slept right through
for 12 hours so woke up in the dark again and it was still 25 June! We were starving by this point so found a local restaurant where the waiters didn´t speak a word of English so Lisa and I managed to suss out some of the menu and make sure Deaks didn´t order fish! We went back to bed and didn´t really sleep much having messed up our body clocks with the serious jet lag!
After the longest day in the world (all 40 hours of it!), we finally woke up to daylight! We spent the day wandering around the streets of Santiago which had a nice feel to it, with coloured buildings and loads of market stalls. We decided to have a night out in Santiago and after consulting the Lonely Planet found that there was a cheesey club called El Tunel which you apparently leave "perspiring but happy"!! We went to a local bar first which was really cool, just like a shack with plastic chairs and tables and Chilean music in the background. A group of local boys got chatting to us and wanted to take us out dancing, we had a very disjointed conversation
with them and worked out that they support Manchester United and then as they ordered their next round we dived into a taxi and headed for the club before they could catch us up! The Chilean men can be a little pervy, I´m lucky i´ve got dark hair but they love Deaks and Lisa and were blowing kisses and kerb crawling as we were walking along the streets!
The next day I sadly left the girls and headed off on another solo expedition. The girls travelled up through Chile while i fast tracked to San Pedro de Atacama at the border of Chile and Bolivia. I caught a bus to Antofagasta which took 20 hours, i had prepared myself for a Cambodian style bus experience but was pleasantly surprised to find a double decker luxury coach with reclining seats and dvds! I dozed off pretty quickly and a nice man who worked on the bus put a blanket over me and tucked me in - what service! I waited 3 1/2 hours for the connecting bus to San Pedro de Atacama (I will never complain when a bus is 20 minute late in Englnd again!) and spent the next
5 hours on that bus. The whole journey was spent driving on the single road through the desert eventually arriving in San Pedro at 8pm that night. We arrived in the dark at a deserted bus depot and i wondered what the hell i had done going off on my own and how dangerous this was going to be but asked the driver the way to the centre and set off on foot armed with the Lonely Planet and stuck close to other people who had got off the bus too. I found my way to the right hostel which again had no heating (i think this must be a rariety in South America even though it´s absolutely freezing at night!) and went out for some food which cost me all of GBP 2.80! San Pedro is such a cute little place and the streets were buzzing with people. I soon discovered that it was the eve of "San Pedro Day" so was really lucky to be there at that time while the festival and celebrations were taking place.
I got up early and went for a run (the first one in a very long time so i nearly
collapsed and passed out! Glad i did get up early though because the San Pedro Day festivities had already started and a small procession of musicians and dancers were already making their way through the streets. The procession got longer and longer as the day went on and people were lining the streets, it was such a good atmosphere.
I had booked to go sandboaring that afternoon so met up with Sebastian who was our instructor, a couple of American girls, a girl from Brixton and a Spanish boy. We trekked up a massive sand dune called "Death Valley" (!) and Sebastian showed us how to wax our boards and position ourselves. I went 2 metres down the dune and fell on my bum but after a couple of goes i just about got the hang of it so Sebastian decided it was time for us to move from the nursery slope to the main steeper dune and he said as the British are brave i could go first!!! I absolutely sped down the dune so fast but somehow managed to stay on my board, it was so cool until i realised i had to climb back up to
the top again which was such hard work in the midday sun! I collapsed in a heap while the others had a go, the Spanish boy was brilliant but the 2 American girls could not get the hang of it and did some spectacular falls! We went down a few times and i didn´t fall over once, think i might try snowboarding now, thought i wouldn´t like having both feet on the one board but seemed to get the hang of it. We then drove on to the "Valle de la luna" (Moon Valley) where we climbed yet another huge sand dune to watch the sunset, all the surrounding rocks changed colour every second which looked cool and we saw an active volcano which eruped 1 1/2 years ago and a volcano which was half Chilean adn half Bolivian. We then clung to our bags and ran as fast as we could down the sand dune before heading back in to San Pedro where i went for dinner with the 2 American girls before packing my bags ready for my 3 day trip of the Salt Lakes in Bolivia...
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