Chile at last! Its been a long time coming but I'm finally here. After a nasty flight, and arriving several hours before I flew on the same day, we met up with Matt at our very snazzy hostel and went for a walk up to the Cerra Santa Lucia lookout pont. From here you can see all of the city, or rather as much of the city that isn't full of pollution. Santiago is in a basin and it just traps all of the pollution inside it which is not the most prettiest or healthiest of sights. The next day we took a cable car up to the San Christobel to see the statue of the Virgin Mary. A bit similar to Christ the Redeemer in Rio, it sits onto of a hill a mile high where you can, on a good day see the snow capped Andies surrounding it. We walked down, or more realistically fell down the pathway and into the district of Bellavista, full of cafe's bars and boutiques. That night we met a few Irish girls in the hostel and dragged them out with us where we proceded to get very drunk till the early hours of the morning. So much for being safe and not getting plastered!

After our terrible hangover day we had to book our bus to Bolivia. This took a day in itself as we were queing forever in the terminal and relying on Rachel's broken Spanish to get us somewhere. Riding the packed Metro back I was sure a guy was trying to pick pocket me and after I left the train I saw that my pocket with my camera in had been opened and luckily it was still inside. I became a bit more cautious after that.

Well thats what I thought. We ended up going out again with the Irish and getting kicked out of a club and then being charged twice and much than the girls to get into another club. b*****s. Chile is expensive for food and other things, albeit dirt cheap for beers and spirits in shops 80p a litre for beer and 3 quid a bottle of vodka. We headed to a few more museums before getting our 24 hour bus to northern Chile.

Santiago could be any European country and is very much 1st world compared to what I'm going to experience in Bolivia. But thats why I'm doing it. Lets hope I can save some cash soon.