We had a great time in San Pedro de Atacama, even with the freezing nights, and were so lucky to see all the festivities. The few days we were there was spent looking round the beautiful 17th century church of San Pedro, visiting the Archaeological Museum "Gustavo Le Paige" were we learnt about the Atacameno culture and its developments through the Inca invasion and Spanish conquest. Of interest were the shamanic paraphernalia, including hallucinogenic ...

We arrived in the sunny desert town of San Pedro de Atacama (altitude 2440m) this afternoon after a 24hr bus journey. We got on the bus, called a semi cama which means revolving seats with a nice amount of leg room, at 3.30pm in Santiago and stopped at the towns of La Serena, Antofagasta, Calama before arriving here. The journey was better than expected considering we were both quite hungover from our last night in Chile and too much pisco. The only problem was t...

The Lake District - The further south you go , the greener it gets, until you find snow-bound volcanoes rising over lush hills and lakes. On Sunday, day 4, we headed from Pucon, along the Seven Lake Route, in the beautful Lake District of Chile, to Valdivia. First stop was the sleepy town of Lican Ray, located in the North Riviera of the Calafquen Lake. Next stop was Conaripe for some Kuchen (tart with fruit in - yummy!). Stopped to admire the view of the mounta...

On Tuesday we had a lie in (well as much as you can in a noisy hostel!) and went for a coffee in the plaza. The coffee´s are good here but they put squirty cream on everything. We then had a wander to Plaza de Armas to see it in the daylight. The buildings are so beautiful. It was really busy because there was a demonstration about education. We had a lovely Paella lunch in Mercado Central (central market) which also has a great fish market and a couple of fruit...

After saying our farewells to everyone in Auckland and totally decluttering my backpack (I gave the cleaner half my clothes) so that it weighed a lot less, we headed to the airport. Annoyingly we had to pay $25 each departure tax and we boarded Lan Airlines for our 11.5 hr flight to Santiago. To be honest it wasn't the best flight, the staff couldn't be bothered, Jem's video didn't work and my seat wouldn't stay back and the food was pretty bad but the bonus was ...