Well, this is it - this is going to be my last entry from South America! Can't really believe it but its true, at 11pm tonight my time, we will be flying to New Zealand. Due to the length of the flight and the time difference, we won't get there until wednesday which is a bit bizarre but it will be worth it when we get there!! Its been a while since I last updated (sorry!) so this is probably going to be a bit of a mammoth entry....but there's lots to say! We have been having a brilliant time in Santiago, and we're very taken with it. All the bad things that we'd heard about the city before we arrived are most unjustified!! Best of all (in comparison to other parts of our trip!) is that while we've been in the city itself, we have yet to see a single cloud! My Mum would love it here!! Now you may remember that I said in my last entry that we would be arriving late into Santiago, and would probably be going straight to bed. This turned out to be an absolute fib, as we weren't that tired when we got here, and our hostel is in a good location with lots of bars nearby, so we decided to go for a "back in the warmth" celebratory drink at a bar just round the corner. Big mistake! There were just 4 tables of people in there - us, and three tables of local men. All of whom tried it on at some stage. They were taking photos of us, buying drinks for us, offering us music to listen to......one particular beauty was very taken indeed with Sarah and at one point I thought there was going to be a stand off - I thought we were going to have to stand and fight to get her out! It was highly entertaining though, and we repeated our success when we went out the next night too! We're obviously very exotic to people here, we're starting to understand what it must be like going out if you're famous at home - we feel like popstars! We run the risk of getting properly full of ourselves here - we'll be miffed when we get to New Zealand and no one gives us a second glance!! On friday we did the sight of Santiago itself, and they were all lovely. We went to the Parque Metropolitano, and went on funicular and slightly scary cable car! The views from the cable car would be spectacular if only the smog wasn't so thick. We also went to the Cerro Santa Lucia, which is just around the corner from our hostel, and is basically a park, but its a hill and its all built on lots of different levels. Its so pretty, a real oasis in the middle of the city. We also went to the Plaza de Armas, and the main pedestrian streets in the city centre, again just walking distance from the hostel so all in all it was ideal. We went out in the evening in the Bellavista district which is really nice - colourful and lively and just what we were looking for! On the saturday we were feeling a teeny bit worse for wear from the night before, so we had quite a late morning. We went straight to Valparaiso, a little town by the coast which is a favourite weekend haunt for the people of Santiago. Unfortunately, we failed to see the attraction - its quite an ugly port city, and there wasn't much around where we were staying. We did go up into the hills, which is meant to be the nicest part, and it was very pretty, but its all residential, so there isn't really much there. We'd heard that it was lovely, so we were a little bit disappointed!! On the sunday morning we went over to Viña del Mar, which is the same area but a bit further along the coast and has a beach. It probably would have been much better, but being a Sunday almost everything was closed! And the coastal area suffers from a chilly fog that stays about until after lunch, and we only had the morning, so all in all it wasn't the best! We were glad we'd gone, but we were pleased to get back to Santiago! Today has also been lovely, we went to a Vineyard! Its about an hour outside the town, but really easy to get to, and its just one of many vineyards in Chile which belong to Viña Concha y Toro, which is the biggest wine company in Latin America. It was lovely, a gorgeous place and a really good tour. We got to taste two red wines on the tour, and they're not stingy with the glasses! But as we'd only had red on the tour, we decided to do the optional white wine tasting as well after we'd finished! And these glasses were definitely not small, so by the time we were done we were all feeling a tiny bit tipsy, and had to go get something to eat as soon as we got back to prevent an early hangover and feeling atrocious on the plane! So thats about it really, thats been our time in Santiago. Its a really nice city, don't believe anyone who tells you different! I even think I like it as much (if not possibly more) than Buenos Aires, which surprises me really because I really though BA would definitely be my favourite. It seems quite strange to be leaving South America, I've started feeling really at home here! It will be weird to have everyone speaking the same language again.....I'll miss the Spanish! The scariest thing about it all is that it means that me and Sarah are about a third of the way through our trip, and Nikki is two thirds of the way through hers! The first few days we were here went really slowly, and we thought it would seem like ages but its absolutely flown by. And we've loved every minute, so I think its safe to say that I'll be coming back to this part of the world! So, adiós from Chile and South America. See you in New Zealand!! Caroline x