Chile

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Santiago

We left Auckland at 5.30pm on 9th Feb and arrived in Santiago at 12.30pm on 9th Feb (which took a while to get our heads round....bloody international date line). We were feeling pretty jetted lagged by this stage even though the flight was very good, we flew with Lan Airlines a Chilean company and it was far better than our previous flights with Qantas. We were both feeling pretty nervous about heading to South America after hearing lots of horror stories but our experience to date has been nothing but postive. Chile and Argentina are both fantastic countries to start a South American trip as they are very western, friendly and easy going.

We started our journey in Santiago and stayed in a place that had been recommended to us - Hostel de Sammy - it was a bit of an eye opener for us with regard to budgets as your money does not go anywhere near as far as in SE Asia. For $30USD we got a box with no fan and no bathroom! The hostel itself was pretty grimey and very noisy, being jet lagged this was not ideal for us. On the upside Santiago is a really nice place to walk around, it felt very safe and gave us a chance to start practicing our Spanish (Kelly did two months Spanish in Mexico.... it has been coming in very handy. Mark is learning as he goes.) We left Santiago after only two sleepless nights as the weather was hot so we wanted to head to the coast.

We have decided to accelerate our trip to get home a bit early for a number of reasons so if it seems that we are rushing from place to place... it´s because we are! We plan to be home by the end of March.


Whats the worst that could happen.... Valpraiso

After a very easy 2 hour bus ride we checked into a lovely little place (El Rancon Marino) which was just what the doctor ordered. The hosts were really friendly and helpful and the room was quiet and comfy... bliss!

Valpraiso is a lovely little city with colourful houses clinging to the steep hills surrounding the port. Great place to walk around and we tried our first empanada of many! Yum! Speaking of food we had been advised to try the set lunch as a cheap eat option. After walking around and being hot and bothered we picked a restaurant with a menu on the window (3 courses for less than 2 quid) and decided to go for it even though we could not understand what the main course was.... the soup was good and the fruit for dessert was fine but the tripe stew for main was a little outside of our comfort zone....

Vina Del Mar

We went to Vina Del Mar for the day as it is just up the coast from Valpraiso and had a lovely day on the beach followed by a great Mexican and Margarita fest. We took our togs with us to the beach but after Mark dipped his toe in we decided a swim was not on the cards. A current from the antartic was in play making the water cold enough to chill your beers in!

We were only in Chile for 5 nights before taking off for steak land aka Argentina. We are currently in Bolivia about to enter the Jungle for 4 days.. will catch up on blogs after that.

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Comments

[lesley]

sounds good, glad you contiue to eat and drnk well. loves ya