About time huh...After a few days back in NZ. Paul & I flew into Santiago, Chile on Mon 10th. 10 1/2 flight and we finally landed in South America. Arriving in South America with little to no Spanish can be quite interesting... Our cab driver managed to get us within 500m of our hostel. Comfy little family run digs. 1st stop was the post office to post a Dijeridu I purchased at the airport in Sydney, but NZ mail wouldn´t post as too long...! A big sleep to rid the jetlag. met some cool Irish boys at breakfast that gave us a wealth of info.Then back into the big bad city. Today, 11th Sept is a huge day in Chile history....

But the year was 1973, the building Chile's White House, La Moneda, and the event a coup staged by Gen. Augusto Pinochet. Now, after decades of silence, Chileans are protesting in the streets for the reversal of amnesty laws that block prosecutions for the killings after the coup. The face of Salvador Allende, the overthrown Socialist president, is everywhere, and now behind La Moneda is a new statue of him wrapped in the Chilean flag. Chile's president, Ricardo Lagos, is proposing a truth commission to look into reports of torture, special judges to find the disappeared, new pensions for victims' families and an amnesty program for former soldiers who tell where the bodies are buried.

See pictures! We stayed in Santiago for 4 nights, but city life and smog was getting to much. Next stop....Pichilemu, the surfers paradise!