Tomorrow we finally leave Santiago for San Antonio, hopefully to meet up with Gerty. The website we have been using to track her progress has not been working but as we have not heard from Miguel (our shipping agent) we are confident that she is nearing the port. Fingers crossed.

We have spent the last week in Santiago and were worried we would get a bit bored but it is an interesting city and we have been busy. We have watched the changing of the guard outside the Moneda Palace. An army band played marching music and then out of the blue a couple of tango numbers, accompanied by a chorus of barking dogs.

One afternoon we went to the cinema in the posh end of town. In 'Prime' you sit in reclining seats like the ones in first class on planes. You just have to try not to fall asleep.

Peter has been a in a good mood a couple of times when shopping! Couldn't even get him to go shopping at home! Street stalls seem to sell an amazing array of goods from bonsai trees to wigs, with nail clippers being present on most. One stall sold sink plugs of all sizes and we purchased a universal sink plug, which we had been looking for, for ages. We visited a giant shopping mall with a 'jumbo' supermarket. Their shopping malls almost make shopping a pleasure, so he says. Yesterday he went of for a walk and found a street with shops selling hunting equipment including guns for as little as £49!

Our Spanish has been improving slowly. Peter had a lot of practice when the launderette gave us back our laundry minus a pair of his trousers. He returned on his own to the launderette the following day and was very pleased when he retrieved them.

Tuesday we took a bus ride to the port of Valparaiso. It is a huge bay surrounded by a series of undulating hills on which are perched thousands of brightly coloured timber and corrugated steel houses. To reach the top of these hills you have to walk or use the ancient funiculars as few roads make it up the steep gradients. The funiculars were built between 1883 and 1912 and 15 of the original 20 still exist but we found at least 3 closed. We didn't like the lower port area. It was noisy, busy and dirty with only a scattering of the original 19th century grand buildings still left intact but after lunch we went up to the residential area and that was lovely.

Thursday was a national holiday, All Saints day. People visit the graves of their dead relatives, by the tens of thousands, as we found out on the metro. The cemetery is huge, literally a city for the dead with tree lined streets. The mausoleums vary from high rise blocks to small ornate palaces, in a variety of styles even Greek, Gothic, Indian and Egyptian. The atmosphere was more of a fiesta than solemn, with music and ice cream sellers everywhere.

Our first injury is a groin strain I sustained and before you ask; I was not playing football just walking up a big hill in the middle of the city to get a good view. I didn't make it but Peter has since run up the hill three mornings- show off.

On our last day we visited a railway museum and returned to the cinema to see the latest Bond film, as I was having problems walking.