Hey all,

It´s been a while since our last blog entry and we´re actually in Santiago, Chile now which is a really cool city and well worth a visit. So, we´re here for a few days until we catch our flight to New Zealand on the 5th but we have been to a couple of places on the way down to here - one of which was San Pedro de Atacama.

San Pedro is in the middle of the Atacma desert in Northern Chile and it´s the driest desert in the world- FACT!(mainly due to the altitude which means there is less water vapour in the air!) It´s surrounded by volcanoes, some of which are active right now (one still had smoke billowing out of it from it´s recent eruption!). It also has some amazing salt flats and lakes which we visited- one lake was so saline that we could just float in it unaided- totally awesome! And on one salt flat we saw Flamingoes which was really cool- did you know there´s three different types of flamingo here- huh huh huh??!

We also visited the highest Geyser field in the world which involved a 3:45am start (ridic!) so that we could be up at the geysers at 6am. This meant we could see lots more steam billowing from the geysers as it was so cold at that time in the morning- minus 7 degrees people! That was a shock to the system to say the least! After walking around the geysers and eating a boiled egg cooked in the 86 degree Geyser water, we stripped off and jumped into a thermal pool which was lovely until we had to get back out again! (although I found it strangely refreshing!).

That evening we went sand boarding in a place called The Valley of the Moon which is so named as apparently it resembles the surface of the moon! We sand boarded down a sand dune that was about 100 metres high- it was boiling hot, the surrounding landscape was awesome and our sand boarding skills rivalled that of the instructors (well in our minds anyway!). We have a DVD of our sand boaring escapade so we shall have to show you all when we´re home! Afterwards we watched the sun go down over the valley with a Pisco Sour (a traditional Chilean drink) - a great end to a great day!!

After (sadly) leaving San Pedro we headed to a place called La Serena which was totally different as it was very western with modern shops and the hugest supermarket known to mankind! We spent a couple of days here then headed across the border to Mendoza in Argentina to do some wine tasting.

So, we got a bus out to the wine region and hired some bikes for the day (which was actually Vicki´s birthday ) We went to different vineyards to taste the best wine we´ve ever tasted. By far the best winery was called Trapiche which makes high end wines. We had a tour of where the wine is kept and was told about the history of the place and then we got down to tasting some seriously good wine. One of which was the best white wine we have ever tasted- seriously! That night we went out into Mendoza city for a steak and it was the best steak we´ve ever had!!

So now we´re in Santiago and yesterday we went on a free 4 hour walking tour of the city and the guide showed us around all the historical and funky parts of the city. Bella Vista is really cool with lots of places to eat and drink and feels a bit like Brighton. There´s also loads of museums and Churches and art galleries which we´ll check out tomorrow. Today we had shellfish lunch at the famous Mercado Central which was delicious. So we´re experiencing the finer things of Santiago!

Can´t believe our stint in South America is over. We´ve eaten a lot of traditional food, sat on a ridiculous number of buses, seen some great towns and some not so great towns, seen some amazing natural views and places, been to some extraordinary places and eaten our body weight in ice cream but overall we got a real feel for the South American culture and psyche. We´d definately come back again - particularly to Ecuador and Southern Chile. Maybe we might even save up to visit the rest of the continent too! But until then it´s ciao South America and bring on New Zealand!! Woo hoo!!

I know this is a bit early but hope you all have a very Merry Christmas and a Happy New year. Here´s to 2012!!

Lots of Love Katie and Vicki.xxx