Arriving into San Pedro after a pretty good night bus we walked into the main square and found a little cafe for breakfast. The sun was up pretty high already and the arid nature of the area was very apparent. You could feel the moisture being drawn out of the pores in your skin. We set off to find our hostel which was a little way out of town. On our way a local befriended us and offered to show us the way. We were fairly certain of where we were going but we...

After a seven hour bus ride from Valparaiso we arrive in La Serena and make straight for the hostel. We check into a private room with a view to getting some undisturbed shut eye in an attempt to cure our jetlag. We take a walk around La Serena and book onto a tour of the Elqui valley for the following day. We take some lunch at a local restaurant advised by the tour operator and are pleasantly surprised to find lots of pensioners in for lunch too. Must be good ...

We arrive into Valparaiso after a short bus ride from Santiago and head for the harbour thinking that is where all the action will be and it's kind of en route to our hostel. We're greeted with stacks of faded and rusting shipping containers stacked up blocking any view of the sea. A little bit miffed by this we continue on to the hostel. We're on the right lines but a little lost when a lovelly old gentleman asks us where we're going in Spanish and we show him...

We arrive at Auckland airport and check-in. Our flight is delayed a few hours due to a technical problem. So we set about doing the usual things to kill time in an airport. Later on the flight delay is extended now instead of flying at 16:00 we're due to fly at 01:00 the next day. Oh b*****. The entertainment in the terminal is Corrie. Double bubble! I do some rough calculations and realise we will land, all be it just a few hours, the day before we took off. Cr...