We were back on a Condor bus, we managed to put up with the extreme warmth, excessive seats and lack of leg room for their one advantage of it being an absolutely bargain price compared to the other companies. I guess you get what you pay for. We arrived in Santiago half asleep at 5.30am. I was in a nasty habit of leaving things behind, the first thing to go was my hat on the first condor bus trip, then my sunglasses did a vanishing act after the volcano trek and after this bus trip due to me being in a sleepy daze I managed to leave behind my orange football socks. We managed to get straight on to a bus to Santa Cruz. This time we made the short three hour trip with Pullman Del Sur and this particular bus made the Condor look like a Limo. The leg room was that bad I thought I had the person in front of me on my knee. After a squashed ride we made it into Santa Cruz at around 9am. Our first job would be to find some Wi-Fi so we could get in touch with Katy. We had met Katy in Santa Cruz ad she recommended us to visit Santa Cruz as it was much warmer than Pucon. She lied it was bloody baltic. She also said we would be able to stop at her casa.

Our search for Wi-Fi took us into several cafes running along the main street of Santa Cruz, a fast food shop called Doggies and many other establishments but we were coming up short until we found a restaurant by the name of La Socios. We managed to get in touch with Katy who was at work until 1pm so after a Churrasco Italiano, some fries and a couple of fanta's we decided to explore Santa Cruz. There was a museum close by so we ventured there only to be put off by the £6 entry fee. So we decided to go to the park where we would sit and read for a while. I was reading Sir Alex Ferguson's second autobiography which I was engrossed with until the weather became too cold to handle so we decided to go into the local supermarket to get some warmth near the chicken ovens. It was also the place where I came the closest to finding baked beans as we discovered Spaghetti hoops, but still no sign of the tomato based delicacy.

Katy had finished work and we met her outside La Socios where she escorted us back to her house. It was a really nice house she shared with her brother, sister (who was away somewhere) and her two children. He house made Tia Maria, presumably named after the drink had cooked us up a meal which was the Chilean equivalent of Shepherd's Pie. Then after freshening up we hit the local vineyards. We went to several but they were all closed, eventually thought we found Montgrass and a guy called Marcelo who gave us some tastings of five different wines. A white Sauv Blanc, and four reds, a Shiraz and some others. My first experience of red wine was a cheap bottle which tasted like vinegar, since then I had no great desire to enter red wine on my taste pallet again, but after the Mendoza wine tour I became more open minded up the possibility and this tour opened me more to me being more acquainted with wine. Marcelo also had some cheese and biscuits sent to the table, as we tasted some fine wines sat around an open fire. The four reds were delicious, as was the white. It also got me feeling pretty tipsy. The next job on the agenda was to pick Katy's daughter up from school; she was 12 called Valentina or the nick name of Co-Co. She showed signs of being a very grumpy teenager, we then picked up her so Clemente who was just the one year of age and I taught him how to hi-five. After a lacklustre dinner of a cheese and ham toasty and a Chilean traditional pastry called sopipiula we dropped Clemente off with his Grandma Lula. She was a character, didn't speak any English but fed us shots of Jack Daniels with honey. She also looked like an ex England and Manchester United player who played in the 60's - Nobby Stiles in drag. She was a lovely woman though who tried to tell us about her late husband and her trips to Mexico but our limited understanding of the native tongue meant we didn't quite take everything in. We then went to see Katy's friend Paulinha who was apparently very interested in meeting Earl. We drank a Chilean drink of Piscola there and I played football with her son who also had a princess ruck-sack. I was sure he would grow up gay. We arranged to go out but Paulinha needed to get ready so we went back to Katy's where fatigue and tiredness caught up with me and I retreated to bed leaving Earl free to wine and dine Paulinha.

The next day we woke up after showing Katy a picture of a full English she insisted I cook one, I managed to do the best with the sausages, eggs and ham I had but it was quite far off a traditional English brekky. But we also had some Chilean empanadas which were decent but a long way off the Argentinian version. I watched the Chelsea vs Leicester game and then it was time to set-off again this time to Valparaiso. Katy had offered to drive us to the bus terminal and what started off as a joke that she would drive us to our next destination ended up as a reality. We were embarking on our first journey by car from city to city. It was time for a road trip!

So until next time stay safe and take care

Adi

xx