My South American time traveling experience (over the date line) started flying over the west coast of Chile where I got the chance to see the Andes from the air. Even though I was tired from the 12 hour flight I remember getting pretty excited...an amazing sight.

Santiago is situated in a massive valley and could very well be one of the most polluted cities in the world. Generally smog prevents views of clarity to the mountain ranges but everyday is a blue sky day and it´s hot...happy days!

Initially I traveling south to Pucon and Puerto Varas where the weather is not so good, getting closer to Patagonia is known for its more overcast weather. These places had a European feel to them. A mix up on the buses meant I left my Guitarre (part of my mobile home) on the bus - on the bright side I can now wave my arms around pointing at things attempting to communicate..glad I packed my sense of humour!

My homestay is in Providencia, a more up market suburb of Santiago, and my Espanol Mama Cristina and Papa Edmundo are sooo nice! I also have the comfort of my own room, double bed, on suite bathroom, TV (from what I can understand of it) and pet cat!LOL

There is a "river/canal" which I have renamed "Rio Con Caca" which my Espanol hosts found very amusing...I´ll leave you to draw your own conclusions!! My Chilean Ma and Pa walked me to my school on the first day...god I felt about 4 years old!!

Evenings have been spent asking Chilean Mama and Papa for assistance with homework and working out ingenious forms of communication involving dictionaries, pen and paper, frantic pointing, role play and of course Espanol!!

Speaking of ingenious forms of communication I went into a pharmacy as I had a cut on my foot (nothing serious). I picked some choice, not so well pronounced, words from my Espanol dictionary and was met with blank expressions.....cocking my leg up over the counter for their perusal did the trick though!!LOL(again ..glad I packed a sense of humour!)

So, my school is ECELA for two weeks. There are people of all ages and nationalities here learning Spanish. My first task was to complete an assessment of ability test at 8am in the morning...this took my sloth like language brain all of 10 seconds to write my name and evaluate I knew absolutely "na da. I learning to pronounce letters differently, there is no "it" everything is masculine or feminin which along with the context defines the verbs used, my tongue is in "RRRR" rolling training and J is a sound not to dis similar to Klingon!!

There is a limit on what you can learn in 2 weeks but I´ll have enough to get by on and a lot of the words are from English anyway. TOP TIP WHAT NOT TO SAY- When asking your age in Spanish it translates to " How many years do you have?" Anos is the word for years with an ascent on the N, anyway I initially pronounced it without the ascent and was told by my Espanol professor to be careful. After consulting my dictionary I understood the reason why - the word translates to Anus! LOL

It appears the Chileans are currently blasting a tunnel through part of the surrounding mountains which results in a short boom and rapid shaking of the ventanas! (windows!). At the moment this is serving as an amusing second wake up alarm call which makes me laugh every time.

The nightlife here goes on well into the early hours, women seen to be brunette and beautiful (life is hard) !