Hi guys!!

How are you all? It's been a long time, I know, but in all honesty that's because Cherie and I have been very lazy/relaxing and have not done a lot since arriving.

In saying that, you all would have heard about the giant mumma of an earthquake that hit us, so get comfy cause this'll be a long one;.... For those of you that want to jump to the action of the earthquake, it starts on Sat 27/02 :)

Basically we spent most of last week setting up house, making a giagante sign for Trish's soon-to-be arrival at the airport in Santiago, and basically relaxing. Nothing to complain about here!

Friday 26/02 - we woke up nice and early after doing the finishing touches on Trish's sign - including an A4 picture of her in a sumo suit from our Mex party a while back ahhaah. Got a taxi to the airport about 6am - had to be there by 7am. We arrived and saw the only flights from Punta Arenas that were arriving, already had, there was no sign of a 7am one, that's for sure! Anyway, we stood there looking hopeful, for all of about 25 mins until the security guard informed us that... no one was left to come through.

So, with the world on our shoulders we walked away looking very confused, and disappointed. Decided to have a coffee and think about what to do (this involved A LOT of theories as to why Trish didn't turn up lol...she was passed out from a boozey night and didn’t make the flight, she met a boy and was having sexy times, she slept through her alarm, we got the wrong day or time) Just after 7am, our new security guard friend waved us over saying another flight had landed. At this point, we looked up at the screen and a new flight (her flight) had appeared which made a hell of a lot of sense lol. We waved our sign around like lunatics, and blew on our little party hooter things... Saw Trish and got about as much of a yawn for a reaction LOL. Actually, the people next to Cherie said “Oh, that’s the girl they’re waiting for. Look, she’s asleep!” So again, we were not feeling too proud about our sign! But, such is life.... Once she came over though, she cracked up laughing which was great; more along the lines of what we wanted!! Was so nice to see her, looking like a sexy minx too!

Had another coffee, (oh how I love coffee), then got on the bus to head back to the apartment. Had our first trouble at the metro station, on our way home LOL. When I say trouble, I mean that we were n00bs and didn't realise that since it was peak travelling time there were express tubes - so we got on one, and it didn't stop at our stop. A few more tubes and missed stops later, we arrived and walked up to the apartment.

Went out for breakkie and a gossip, and then went to the St. Lucia markets and fort thingy. So cool! And only 15mins walk from our apartment (no, we did not walk lol we are lazy and therefore used the metro, found out it was so close after we had been haha)! The fort thing was crazy cool. In the middle of the city and it's huge, real leafy and green, and wicked views from the top. I can tell you though; stairs were not my friend after that! So many to walk up and down, not to complain or be lazy, but very steep too! Worth it for the view though!

Mucked around for the rest of the day, and then watched a slideshow of Trish's trip down south which looked like she enjoyed herself a lot. Had some vino with Cherie once Trish passed out from the long trip she'd just had, and then went to bed about 1am!

Saturday 27/02:
Lol. Ok, here we go guys!
Basically, I woke up to Trish saying "it's an earthquake, get up" or something along those lines. I hadn't realised that Cherie (of all people – that girl sleeps through almost anything) woke up first and sprung up into the kitchen. (Just so you get a clear picture in your head - when you walk into our little apartment, there are two rooms connected by a sliding door. To the left is the bedroom and bathroom; to the right (pretty much you walk in to it) is the lounge and kitchen).
I stumbled up and into the bathroom doorway with Trish - we were both facing the kitchen. Cherie, not being the best in emergencies, went running to grab her fragile carnaval mask that she bought from Bolivia, which was sitting on the bench. The oil that was on another part of the bench had fallen off and spilled so was all over the floor! So basically, all I could see was Cherie sliding backwards and forwards along the lounge trying to get back into the bedroom with us, while carfeully holding her f***ing mask.

The floor felt like it was bouncing up and down, and we were swaying like there was no tomorrow. I was holding on to the door frame throughout, and was kinda like, in my half asleep state thinking wtf is going on! At first I thought Trish was having night terrors or something and was dreaming when she was telling me to get up because there was an earthquake lol. Then I kinda thought I was dreaming, or going crazy, or most likely both. But no, that definitely was an earthquake.... The windows and slider doors are all on rollers so they were moving backwards and forwards, opening and closing as the building swayed. That seemed to go on for ages, I think because we were floor 26 out of 27 that a lot of the impact would have hit the lower floors and we got more of the swaying. Don't know if that was a good thing or not though!

Anyway, after looking out the window to just blackness - all the power over the city was out, Trish (being the smart cookie she is) yelled out to us "get your pants on!" and we got the f*** out of there. Had to stop in a few doorways on the way down from aftershocks! Obviously, we took the stairs and within 5 mins the generator stopped working. Seriously, a brand new building, and the generator runs out... weird right? So we scaled down the 26 flights of stairs, in record time I might add, oh and in jandals too hahaha. And met the rest of the building (not many and not a lot of apartments had been filled with tenants yet) in the lobby.

Sat there for a couple of hours and then got the ok to go back up. Up until now, I had kinda figured it was a big earthquake, but as we were downstairs more info started coming through, rumors that it was an 8 on the Richter scale, but we were still pretty oblivious to stuff yet and didn't think home would have heard about it sort of thing. Our main priority was getting upstairs and back to bed haahah, the climb was hard, hard to see and s***t. We all had one hand holding on to each other’s belt loops in our pants and the other on to the rail. Had gone into shock at this stage and kept laughing and then ducking at every corner, don't know what from but! Only took us 10 mins to get up the 26 flights, and we didn't stop once. That's obviously from the adrenaline though, because we are not the fittest peeps in the world….

The girls went back to sleep, once upstairs; I couldn’t, being the s***t sleeper that I am (Sarah, you know what I’m talking about)… but just as I started drifting off, more rumbling and movement came and we were back in the doorway. By this point Trish and I were done with it and had had enough, so we decided to gap and find a phone… Maybe not the smartest move, but luckily it worked out for us. Took us between 3 and 4 solid hours, to find a working phone that would get us through to home!

The public phones weren’t working – the only call we were able to make on them was to the embassy…. This happened to be shut. On that (non) positive note, we went to the police who informed us that shops would open, and just to wait. So we took a seat in the plaza, looking at the church; still shaking at this point and feeling a bit emotionless. We met a really nice Chilean man, who offered us his cell phone and when that didn’t work stayed with us, until we got to a call centre and called home. We roamed the streets for a while, and there was glass EVERYWHERE; glass and rubble just covering the entire streets. A couple of coffees and a s***t load of money on phone calls later, we had managed to get hold of the embassy emergency line and registered, and also got through to Trish’s family both here and at home = Success!

We went back to the apartment to collect our valuables and also Cherie; it took us a bit longer this time to get up the stairs, and a few breaks as well to catch our breath lol. Not fun times I tell you, climbing 26 flights in the dark is not my idea of an enjoyable past time. We grabbed what we could, and then started the long trip back down the motherf***ing stairs. Went back to the plaza, eyed up by every dodgy looking person around (and there were a few of them… bring s the crazies out I tell you) and waited for the embassy to collect us. Had a quick bite to eat, funny because the only people in the few open restaurants seemed to be tourists. Go figure lol.

Derek from the embassy picked us up within the hour of us calling; he’s the ambassador’s husband. We renamed him Scerek (scary Derek) because he was a crazy lunatic really. Enough said. The residence was AMAZING. Really beautiful property and house, and sitting on their patio, you would have no idea that an earthquake had even happened! At this point, we were all thinking ‘wow, good to know our taxes go towards something decent’. Oh how we were wrong hahah. Trish went to stay with family so it was just me and Cherie left, and the people working at the embassy. We were so grateful to have a bed, food and be around people – if we had of been in a hostel, we wouldn’t have been so freaked out as we would have been with more people in the same situation. Plus, there was no power or water at the apartment, so going back there was not an option!

But honestly, as time went on… first impressions definitely wore off. And now we’re both thinking, what a f***ing circus it was there! Like seriously it was a f***ing joke… The advice they had was very limited, and I understand that they are trying to figure things out, but come on… you’ve got to at least know a bit more than just “oh I think the metro is going…” regarding the transport situation. And saying stuff like “oh, well, you could go have a walk or potter around at your apartment…” Are you kidding me?! When the news is talking about looters, and a supermarket in the suburb over had apparently been ransacked, so we were kinda like, uh no, not going to “potter around” our 26th flight dark apartment. No way, jose. Anyway, I have a whole long list to b**** about, but that is beside the point for you guys!

By 9pm, we were told that over 60 aftershocks had been recorded, and that the only ones being recorded were those that rated over 5 on the Richter scale. Even when we called home earlier in the day we had one and got up to get into the door. We crashed out that night, which I am so grateful about because by 11pm I was still in shock, moving between wanting to cry and laugh, and still couldn’t believe what had happened! The news definitely made it hit home a bit harder… but was very scared about going to sleep to be honest! Thinking I would have nightmares and the like, or that another earthquake would happen! Cecelia – the only sane person at the embassy, was the same and when the garage roller door went up at 2am, she thought it was another earthquake and ran for the door lol!

Sunday 28/02 -
Woke up around 8am, and decided to sleep in, but a bit later another aftershock started. Turned out it was a 6.2 on the Richter scale! That’s not even an aftershock for goodness sake, that’s another whole earthquake!! Cherie luckily slept through that one, but I was on the edge of the bed waiting to wake her up and get us to a door way lol. Mucked around most of the day and watched more news. To be honest, that’s all we really could do until we could get onto the internet. Managed to speak to Kate Lynch from TV3 on Skype during the day though; funny cause even though we were at the embassy, she gave us the most reassurance since the whole thing had even happened – so I am very grateful to her for calling us 

Monday 01/03 –
Decided to leave the embassy this morning, even though the place is a mansion and we kept to our room, we still felt like we were very much a burden and in the way. So Scerek, who was the happiest we’d seen him this whole time, got us in the car and happily dropped us off on the side of the road in the city centre. *Another aftershock just happened right now haha*. We went to our O.G. hostel from before we stayed in our apartment and have set up camp here. Had a delicious meal out, our first proper meal since the day before this all happened… and then went to the apartment to see what the dealio was there. The power was still half out so up the stairs we went again… I won’t lie; it was a bit nerve wracking being in that apartment again. I thought I would have been fine about it, but I was shaking a bit again, and just kinda wanted to get our s***t and get out. We left a lot behind and are going to try and organize the Salvation Army to collect it as donations – aside from my clothes and s***t that I just don’t want to carry now (yes, we had to carry everything we own over here down those f***ing stairs in the dark – I hated the stairs before but now even more) there is everything that Cherie had bought to kit out her house – brand new bed, fridge etc etc.

Came back to the hostel and haven’t left since. Had at least 3 aftershocks when I have been on the internet writing this blog, and every time one of these happens it reminds of why we want to get out of here! There were even cracks down the wardrobe walls in Cherie’s apartment! So all is a still a little scary and we are trying to figure out the best way to get out of here.
We had been advised that the airport should be open to taking new flights on Friday and so we were going to head up to LAX (more frequent flights going to USA rather than NZ) and then Cherie home, and myself to NYC. But we’ve just spoken to the airline now and they have cancelled all new flights, so unless you had an original ticket, then there are no seats available. So now we’re not sure really what we are going to do. We either sit here and wait it out but then have no guarantee when we can leave, or we risk the bus and get on one to B.A, Argentina. From there all the flights to NZ are full until March 29, so looks like we will still will head to LA and then go our separate ways.

Will keep ya’ll updated though! xxxx
p.s. just wanted to say thanks again for all the messages from you guys, its been really nice and reassuring to hear from you all at home xxxx