As we crossed the date line during our flight, we arrived in Santiago at around 1pm on 30th September - 5 hours before we left New Zealand. The flight was our longest yet at around 12 hours, but it was relatively easy as we spent most of the time watching films before getting a few hours sleep. We were a little tired when we arrived as it was 6am New Zealand time, but we had planned ahead and booked a transfer to the hostel.
Our room wasn´t quite ready when we arrived, so we had a short walk around the local area, before getting straight into bed once our dorm was cleaned. We slept for around 4 hours, then woke up just in time for the start of a BBQ in the hostel. There place was quite busy, so we got chatting to a few people, and Amy got a chance to practice her Spanish. A couple of the locals were playing loads of Beatles songs on guitar, and one of them looked eerily like a latino, Abbey Road era John Lennon. We stayed up until about 2am drinking wine, then got to bed.

The next day we both woke up really early due to the jet lag, with hangovers that seemed totally out of proportion with the amount we had drunk. Much of the day became a write-off - We went back to bed and didn´t really surface to do anything until the early evening. When we did eventually get up, we spent the evening watching TV or reading our books until about 2am. We weren´t tired but decided it would help the jet lag if we got some sleep.

The ploy didn´t work, and we both got up again at 5am. We carried on reading out on the veranda until breakfast was served, then went back to bed at 9am utterly exhausted. We woke up again at 1pm, annoyed that we had slept in, then decided we should actually get out and see the town. We took the short walk to Parque Metropolitano, which is situated on a hill overlooking the city. We bought tickets for the furnicular and stoped half way up to go to the zoo - Our 5th on the trip so far I think. We spent an hour or two looking around, but were dissapointed when we saw the Crocodile enclosure. We noticed the croc´s lunch was two live guinea pigs, so we decided to watch the action. After a few minutes looking in the crocodile didn´t seem too bothered, so we moved on. When we came back five minutes later the Croc was in the same place and there was no sign of the guinea pigs. After the zoo we took the furnicular up to the top of the hill. The views were awesome, and we could see the Andes jutting up out of nowhere at the edge of the city. We had a wander about up at the top where there was a big statue of the Virgin Mary, and we also saw a tarantula walking about. We had another quiet evening, then went to bed about midnight. The next day I still hadn´t adjusted to the time difference, so I was up at 5am again, then back in bed by 8am. We were up and out of the hostel by midday, and we decided to take a look around the centre. We went to the Plaza De Armas, which is the cities main square. There was a stage set up in the centre where a some couples were dancing to a tradtitional band which was pretty good. Afterwards we had a potter about the Cathedral, then went along to the presidential plalace. There seemed to be a few people walking around with llamas, which was strange, but quite cool.

On our last day in Santiago, we were up early to go and watch the Liverpool vs Chelsea match in a local bar. We thought it might be quite busy, but we were the only people in the bar. After a bit of channel hopping, the barmaid found the game and we settled in to watch it. Liverpool lost, but it was good to see a live premiership game for the first time in a month. Once it was over, we went back to the hostel and got our bags. We took the underground to the bus station for the short trip to Valpariso.