We left New Zealand at 6pm and arrived in Chile at 2pm the same day. This did not help our jetlag. Apart from that we've been having a really nice time! Santiago is quite a big city and very similar in style to Paris or Rome with lots of big plazas and old buildings. When we arrived the hotel we had been planning to stay in didn´t have any rooms free so we went a bit further into the centre and ended up staying in the Plaza de Armas. The photo is the cool view from our room. We spent the first couple of days going around a few museums and getting acquainted with the city. We then decided to take a trip up the funicular to the top of a big hill in the city with a statue of the virgin Mary at the top. It wasn't quite a spectacular as Rio, and the smog spoilt the view of the city, but it was cool to mix with all the locals. So far our attempts at Spanish have met with mixed results: Alice is pretty good but when I try people just look at me blankly.

We were surprised to find that Batman was showing at the cinema so for novelties sake we thought we'd go and see it. The queue of people stretched right around the block. Clearly el caballero oscuro is mucho popular out here. Another night the place we were staying had a 'traditional' Chilean meal which mainly consisted of mussels and seaweed. We used the opportunity to chat to other travellers about good places to go in South America. The general suggestion was that to avoid the cold we should head over to Argentina so that's the plan for the next couple of weeks.