After a long 20 hours of travel, which actually included travelling back in time (we landed in South America 45mins before our flight took off in Sydney!!) we arrived at Bellavista Hostel in Santiago, Chile! It sounds cliché but it was actually quite Chile or chilly….no pun intended!

Feeling quite tired from the flight we decided to have a little power nap before going out to explore Santiago……little did we know that this power nap would evolve into a 10hour sleep marathon…..Jodie's fault for shutting the blinds! At least the bed was bedbug free! So our first day we didn't even make it out of the hostel.

Day 2 - up bright and early to go on a free walking tour around the city. First impressions of Santiago are quite run down, stray dogs (although well looked after by everyone - they even have kennels in the park for them), however quite surreal as the built up city is surrounded by snow-capped mountains. No one really speaks English - this is a problemo, we really need to brush up on the Spanish skills as you can only get so far with hola and gracias! Lewis' solution to restaurants with non-translated menus….recommendo??

Our plans have already changed as we have been informed that going to southern Chile is, in better words, suicidal…it is basically in hibernation as it is far too cold there. Were quite gutted about this as was really looking forward to the glacier hike and may have to postpone towards October time when it starts to warm up! We have now booked to go to northern Chile and head into the Atacama Desert for 7 days….as you can guess, Jodie is happy about the possibility of some sunshine J

Heading off into the desert we stride…..with pride…..with only our guide….so we shall hide……(Lewis moaned about my writing being "plain Jane" so I have tried to be more imaginative to say that we have no internet for the next week so will be in touch soon!

Adios Amigos xxxxxxx