Daytime came too early. Both of us would have slept later if we could have but we knew Patricio had said our new motorhome would be here at nine. We showered and dressed and ate breakfast. At nine there was no sign of him in the lobby so we had another cup of coffee. Afterwards Joan walked out in to the hotel car park and saw a motorhome remarkably like the one that had broken down. Kevin switched on his phone and he had messages from Patricio on WhatsApp to s...

We both slept well but the task ahead was daunting. Our vehicle was in a garage the other side of town. The hire company was in Santiago and our Spanish is not great on the phone. First we had breakfast to fortify ourselves and then Joan tried to load WhatsApp on to her phone as the guy, Patricio, from the hire company uses it. But it required an SMS to verify our account but we have no coverage in Chile! We were cobbling together info about the garage and the...

We both slept better than any other night of the holiday so far. We got up just before nine and were beginning breakfast when a bus turned up and a load of school kids tumbled out. Within seconds they were kicking about a football and generally haring about. The women who accompanied the children set up stall on the long benches and immediately lit a BBQ. The kids were told to line up and each was issued with a litre of fruit drink, a cake and a cereal bar. Th...

We woke up as the sun was rising in Santiago. The weather is threatening to be hotter than yesterday. We ate breakfast downstairs before packing our cases and waiting for the drop off of our vehicle. We received a phone call from reception to say that the motorhome would be late by an hour so we both buried ourselves in our novels. Fifteen minutes later another phone call had us scrambling to get downstairs and meet Patricio from Andes Motoromes. The motorhom...

We both slept ridiculously well and had breakfast in the restaurant downstairs. Joan has never seen pickled gherkins, onions and capers served for breakfast - but being Lancastrian ate some none the less. Today was a rest day to help us recuperate before setting off North tomorrow. Neither of us are very good at cities so we decided to go up Cerro San Cristobal, a spur of the Andes that lies at the very heart of Santiago, topped by a statue of the Immaculate Conc...