Chilling in Chile

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From Argentina we took a bus across the Andes into Chile. The border crossing was smooth but the 2nd part of the journey as we descended into Chile would rival Bolivia´s "most dangerous road" with it´s hairpin corners and sheer drops!

We arrived in Vina Del Mar for some time on the beach. A beautiful looking beach and with not much there - probably the only beach resort we´ve ever seen with no bars or restaurants anywhere near the ocean!

Next stop was around the bay to Valpariso which is a port town but the architecture is picturesque and reminiscent of the Italian coast. We went exploring and attempted to ride one of the many "elevators" around the town which are small trains that climb the hills overlooking the bay. However, they were all closed and so we opted for plan B. We saw a bar on a nearby hill and aimed for that. Unsure of directions we asked a friendly Policeman who happily directed us through favela-looking areas to get up to this bar, which we then found to be full of drunken locals at 2 pm so we opted on not hanging around. Particularly when we realised the view we´d be trying to get was not as spectacular as expected and rather dominated by the large ugly looking port area!

We returned to our Hostel to find it was something of a party Hostel so we decided that we´d have to do our best to fit in...

From here we went to Santiago where after some general sight-seeing we opted to spend our time by the pool of a Hostel where our friends were staying.

We then flew down to Punta Arenas from Puerto Montt from where we were heading back to the mountains.

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