We had to be up early to get to the bus station for our 7:30am departure to Mendoza. It was Sunday and the metro didn't start until 8am so we asked guy from the concierge desk to call us a taxi. He said he would take us for the price of taxi so that worked out perfectly. We were travelling with Cata Internacional and the bus left on time. Not long after leaving we were brought a cup of tea and brownie, very nice apart from the tea being overly sweet. We were na...

Tips 4 Tours were so good yesterday that we decided to go on their other tour, 'Off Beat Santiago', to those parts of the city that might not be considered the 'Highlights'. We made our way back to Bellas Artes for the 10am start and Matias was our 'Wally' again as he promised yesterday. A couple of quiltros, the street dogs, were hanging around waiting for us to start the tour. They are so friendly and love just a simple pat on the head. The tour set off ro...

It was nice to have an apartment and put the kettle on while still in pajamas. It was a lazy morning, drinking numerous coffees while leisurely watching the morning traffic and the views across the city to the mountains. We eventually managed to get out and made our way to the metro to get back to the bus station. Tickets to Mendoza, Argentina can sell out fast and we wanted tickets for Sunday. We managed to get semi-cama seats on CATA bus, we'll see what they ...

We were leaving La Serena behind this morning and taking the 11:10am bus to Santiago. Well, we thought we were taking the 11:10am bus but the first 3 buses that arrived were all earlier ones that were running late. Our bus eventually arrived 30 minutes late and we were on our way. The journey was approximately six hours and we had some nice views of the Pacific Coast on the way south. There were lots of fields of different varieties of wild flowers. The bus a...

The plan was to go to Valle de Elqui today but it was raining so after mulling it over during breakfast we decided to give it a miss. The rest of the morning was spent forward planning. Even though we have about 60 days left before our flight back to London, we're beginning to think that we're running out of time. We took a wander into the town for some lunch in a colonial patio cafe. The menu del diá was basic but the food was good and the beer was cold. ...