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Hola! Sorry it's taken so long for us to contact you all. We've just been so busy. First of all, we'd better let you know that it is in fact rather chilly in Chile (!) but that hasn't stopped us having a great time, and Asher and Chris are pretending that it's sunny by eating icecreams anyway.
It was raining when we arrived in Santiago...but that seems like nothing compared to the stories we keep hearing about England. We stayed in a hostel there for 3 days, catching up, and making friends with others in the hostel. The only touristy thing we really did there was getting a cable car up to a large statue of the virgin on a hill. Other than that we went to cafes and restaurant and tried to get to grips with the language, we're actually getting quite good with our spanglish! After Santiago we went to the beachside resorts of Vina del Mar and Valparaiso where we found some great markets and the best hot chocolate in the world ever - it was so thick and creamy it was more like a meal and reminded me of that bit in Narnia on the sledge when Edmund drank the queens drink that made him all warm!
We have actually tried a lot of the local food and drink and have spent quite a lot of time in the local wineries! The national drink here is Pisco and the other day we went to a pisco distillery in the elqui valley which was absolutely stunning and surrounded by mountains and vineyards. They have really good steak here (Dave would love the barros luca sandwiches with steak and cheese!). They also have pasties called empanadas which are lovely. We weren't too keen on the plaited pigs intestine that we tried the other day, but they have a lot of sweetcorn here so Em's happy!
We're off to a penguin island tomorrow and then up to the salt desert the day after (17hr journey). They do have very cheap busses here (a lot better that Arriva we have realised) although we did get robbed the other day on the bus so unfortunately have lost 500 photographs that we were hoping to torture you with. They didn't take much (apart from purse and camera and sunglasses) but Em was very gutted about her mini first aid kit and rape alarm that were taken!
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