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. Crossing the date line for the first would mean we were going to go back in time! Exciting!

The flight eventually takes off at 2am and knowing the huge time difference we attempt to stay awake as long as we can which isn't very long.

We arrive around 7pm Santiago time feeling battered and beaten and a little aprehensive of what the culture shock will be like after quiet New Zealand along with our limited Spanish.We collect our luggage and I ask a lovelly old lady behind a tourist information booth for taxi recommendations and cost to our destination. She advises about 27,000 to 35,000 pesos would be about right.

Too tired to calculate what that is but conscious of not being ripped off we ask for a price at the official airport taxi desk. They quote 70,000 pesos which does seem high (subsequent calculations told me that's around £100!).

We go to try our luck with the mob waiting outside the big automatic doors. "Taxi, taxi!" is all we hear. I ask for a quote and if there is a tourist information office and the reply is "25,000" and "no it is closed". We decide to look around and see what we can find. One taxi driver drops his price to 11,000 which makes me suspicious and we walk off.

After ohhh about 2 minutes walk we find the 'closed' tourist office and get a nice guy who advises us to take a bus into Santiago and then the train. Total cost about 2,000 pesos each. This is more like it and another tourist tax bullet dodged! We catch the bus and after paying the driver I check my change. Cheeky get! Wrong changed me 5,000 pesos. I have a word with the chap helping people on who after a quick chat with the driver passes me the rest of our change. Bullet number two dodged.

We find our hostel fairly easily with the help from some super friendly locals and try to sleep.

We wake up the next day after both enduring very poor nights sleep. Jetlag is knocking us about like Tyson vs Bruno. We catch a train into the centre and check out the Centro Mercado. On the way back we pass through Plazas and down tree lined avenues. The obvious feeling and similarity to Spain is there but there is also something different about the place which is hard to put your finger on.

That evening we go out with Chris, Nick and Amanda who we meet at the hostel. Chris and Nick are taking us to a terremoto joint near the Centro Mercado. Terremoto means earthquake and is a drink the locals appear to drink until they're smashed. It's made up of cheap sweet white wine, pineapple sorbet and fernet or brandy and its served in pint pots. Bar is full of drunk locals singing and chanting and at first it is a little disconcerting. After half a terremoto though any feeling of concern has gone and effects of the drink start to filter through. Notable highlights are the local couple who fall off a chair and end up on the fall without breaking their embrace and Helena announcing her legs weren't working properly on the way back from the toilet.

The next day we wake up after another jetlag interrupted nights sleep and spend the day sorting out the next leg of the trip and complaining about jetlag.

Next stop Valpairaso!