?Hola mis amigos!

Well, not really sure where to start as it?s been a crazy few days. We should just mention that on Saturday night we spent our last night together as a trio and we definately finished off with a bang. We had a raelly nice meal on the harbourfront then went to the Minus 5 bar where we all got dressed up in some lovely gear to go inside. We met up with some girls from Fraser Island who were also in Auckland and partied the night away at one of the bars in town. It was a very fun night although in hindsight we probably shouldn?t have partied so hard because we felt a little worse for wear the next day which wasn?t nice when we had to get a 12 hour flight!

We arrived in Santiago before we left New Zealand as we crossed the international dateline so that was a bit strange as our Sunday lasted for around 40 hours! As soon as we entered Arrivals we were pounced on by loads of taxi men trying to get our fare, one of them even followed us around for a bit which was a little disturbing! But after spending 10 minutes trying to get money out of a cash machine that didn?t speak English we found a bus into the city and jumped on. We then had to get on the Metro and walk for about 15 mins before we got to our hostel. We obviously looked like tourists as loads of people kept trying to help us but unfortunately we had absolutely no clue what they were saying. The hostel?wasn?t easy to find at all as it had no sign outside and was surrounded by some huge metal gates, however once inside we were finally able to relax as everyone spoke English.

In the evening we ventured out of the hostel to a restaurant just down the road. It was empty but we went in anyway (apparently people don?t eat until after 9pm here and we were obviously early arriving at 8pm). The waiters didn?t speak Spainish and the menu was full of words that for some reason weren?t in our phrasebook, but we managed to order a bottle of red wine so that was ok. Food was a bit more difficult and after some interesting attempts at discussing the menu with the waiter we ended up with some rather tasty beef stew thing which bizzarely had chips in it!

On Monday we had a lazy start and just went for a wander into the city centre, which is a very crazy place! People kept staring at Jen?s hair as she was the only blonde around and we had to avoid getting run over when crossing the roads as the Chileans don?t seem to respect red lights. It was really strange?walking down the road and not seeing anything that we recognised (except for Mcdonalds!). We went to a little cafe for lunch which was another interesting episode as once again we didn?t have a clue what we were ordering but it turned out to be a tasty salad sandwich. That evening we headed a bit further from the hostel to a restaurant around the corner where we boldly ordered chicken which was a mistake as when it came it was rather pink and a bit bloody so we only ate the orange mash that was served with it through the fear of getting food poisoning! The wine was still good on the other hand, and to top it off, the waiter bought over a glass of Pisco sours for us to try. Pisco is Chile?s national drink and it was mixed with lemon and sugar, although this didn?t dilute the strength of the alcohol and it went to our heads a bit!

Tuesday, after another late start, caused by a mixture of jetlag and pisco, we went up a furnicular railway to the top of San Christobal where we could get some good views of the whole of Santiago, although the smog that the city is famous for made it a bit difficult to see the Andes. It was raelly hot and sunny on top of the hill so we wandered around for a bit and sat in the sun eating empanadas for lunch (its like a cornish pasty with cheese & mushrooms in). We chose to walk back down the hill which was a little strenuous as it was so steep but at least we burnt off some calories! We cooked dinner that evening, our speciality of pasta yet again, but it was nice not having to worry abuot whether it would make us ill!

Today we haven?t really done much, just went back into the city and had lunch in the Plaze de Armas which is where the cathedral is. One funny thing to mention is that in trying to be healthy Becki ordered an avocado salad which turned out to be just a plate of avocado and nothing else, so not really a salad! We are leaving really early tomorrow morning to catch our flight to Buenos Aires, but we are quite glad that we stopped off here on the way. It certainly has been an experience and everything is so much more hard work due to the whole ?no one speaks english? thing. At least its been a bit of an introduction to South America so we are really looking forward to Argentina where we can realy settle in and hopefully get over our letlag which has been plaguing us for the last couple of nights. We keep waking up at around 3am wide awake for about 4 hours, hence the late starts!

We miss you Sam, and everyone back home !

Lots of love,

Jen and Becki xx xx xx