I had managed to make my money just about last, so as I stood waiting for the bus I did not have a penny of Argentinian money on me.

It is customary to give the person who puts your bags in the hold some small change, but all he does is literally take it off you, put a label on and throw it in.

It would be like tipping the people on airport check In desks.

Sod him I thought as I lifted my bag up, plus dont tell me everyone gives him money

..... yep, turns out they do.

Well I got the proper third degree off him when he held out his hand, but worst of all I could see all the locals tutting at me and giving me dirty looks as they handed him coins and made sure that I saw them do it.

I tried to recover it with my confused tourist no understand routine, but it was not washing as he slammed it in.

I am guessing he spat on it a few times as soon as my back was turned. I wished I had put my waterproof cover on now I thought as I did the walk of shame to my seat. Even worse I had no Chilean money on me either for the other end.

Oh well.

The road over the Andes to Santiago is stunning. Luckily there was a bus that ran through the day so I could see it.

I had managed to get a front window so had a great view and was clicking away on my camera after virtually every bend.

I had booked a normal bus but was surprised when we got some food thrown at us. A cup of sprite and some horrible dried up sandwiches.

The funny thing was though that you had nowhere to put anything. You had your sandwich in one hand and your drink in the other. Plus the bus is banging up and down and swerving from left to right.

Do you remember once they filmed someone trying to drink a milkshake or something similar on the front of a rollercoaster? Well that is what I must have looked like as I was jolted around.

I wanted to put some mayonnaise on my sandwich to try to add even a little moisture but ended up getting more on me than the bread.

As always I was sat next to the nutter and he managed to spray a load of coca cola all over us like a grand prix winner with the champagne.

The guard waved some papers at me , so I guessed I needed to fill them in.

Then he made eating gestures towards me.

Was he asking me if I wanted another sandwich?

I looked at him with my usual dumb tourist look and then realised he was asking if I had any food with me as you will get prosecuted if you try to even take an apple in to Chile. They are really strict.

I said no and then suddenly remembered I had a Pear with me.

He looked horrified and started shouting at me.

Then he made the eating gesture again.

Aha, I need to eat it before the border.

So I set about trying to shove this Pear down and fill in my forms at the same time.

We headed up and up the mountain until finally we arrived at the border in the middle of nowhere surrounded by the clouds.

It was a strange place perched high up on the rocks. A huge shed that you drive in to get your stamps and then they pull everything off the bus, x ray it and then you all have to stand in one room while the sniffer dog comes round and they give you dirty looks while looking you up and down.

It was a bizarre experience getting searched en mass. Some of the people were old and frail, and yet they were still expected to stand in the cold.

So aprroved by the sniffer dog, bang bang I was in Chile.

The road down the other side was being repaired. A really severe drop down the mountain side with lots of twists and turns. We got stuck for ages because of the repairs and it soon became dark, so I was unable to see the last leg of the journey.

As we arrived at the bus station I was in a bit of a panic to get to the hostel because of the delay.

I managed to find the underground and was relieved to find it really clean and safe. I had to change lines but it was pretty straight forward.

After getting off I had to walk through a park which was a bit worrying a first. I treated every teenager as a mugger so gave them all the tough guy look haha.

I made it to the hostel on time. It looked small and cosy. As they showed me my room, the people in there had their stuff everywhere, and I mean everywhere, plus there was also another door leading to another dorm. So that meant that they had to walk through our room as well.

My fellow a******* guests made no effort to move anything for me as I struggled to try to unpack. I was swearing to myself as I looked at them wanting to kill them all.

I asked if there was a free locker as I was unable to identify what was what amongst all their crap and they just shrugged their shoulders at me.

I found one that was un locked with some stuff in so thought sod the lot of you and threw it all out and padlocked my stuff in.

I hate backpackers.

I retired to bed only to be woken up by them coming in drunk shouting and putting the light on at around 2 am.

You selfish b******s!!

They apologised and then just carried on regardless.

I plotted which one was going to get the turd under his pillow first.

I had another night of this to go.

Great.

Next day I did all the town centre sites to bits. It was a shame that it was a bit cloudy or else you would be able to see the Andes again as a back drop against the huge sprawling city that it is.

I bought a bottle of wine and some chicken and chips for tea and headed back to the hellhole of a hostel.

My considerate friends were not in, just a man in his sixties sat eating as well. He was American and spoke very slowly with a monotone strong accent and had one eye that looked a different direction to the other.

He also appeared to have got most of the grease from his meal all over his face, plus he dribbled out the side of his mouth as well.

As we got chatting and he slurped on his cold chicken leg and left most of his meal on his chin I did not know where to look. Luckily I had already finished my food or he would have put me right off.

He was a proper wine boffin and would not stop talking about it.

He was pleasant enough though and was better than the gits in my room to talk to, plus he introduced me to an amazingly cheap and fabulous quality bottle of wine that was to serve me well in the days ahead.

Sure enough the gits got back late again and woke me up once more. I could not wait to check out in the morning.

Just around the corner was a motorbike shop and I remembered the tale of Alberto riding through Chile.

Whilst biking through the Andes, the man who we went with also worked for the Dakar rally, and I saw all his maps on the wall that showed a great deal of the route through Chile. I was seriously tempted to buy a bike with all these crazy ideas going through my head, but decided against it in the end, and booked a bus to the town to the west which was on the coast.

Santiago was definitely a case of the journey being better than the destination.

Next stop.......Valparaiso......