Day 1 - Chile Arrival

After a long but ok flight, we arrived into Santiago 3 hours before we took off !!We walked out to be quickly harassed by lots of taxi men (ahhh, the joy of travelling) and decided to take one since it was pretty much the same as two bus seats.We arrived at our hostel and it took a moment to realise it was just that and not a normal house.Anyway, we got our room and decided to take a quick nap.We hoped, since we flew through our night, arriving about 4am and had managed to get some sleep that we'd be ok with the jet lag but a quick hour wouldn't hurt.

After that we wondered the local streets to get our bearings and decided we'd go all out and have a pizza!!After a long discussion with the women, her speaking Spanish extremely quickly and us having no clue, we decided we may need to learn some phrases to get us through these months.

We headed back after a while and chilled out before going to bed.Sleep was going well till someone decided to wake us up with some shouting around 1:30am.Then we were awake for the next 3 hours or so (so much for not having an issue with jet lag).We got to listen to all the hostel noises for a few hours, yep including someone making the bed rock!!!

Day 2 - Santiago

We got up and had booked ourselves on a bike tour of the city and the local markets.After arriving a little late, we got on our bikes and started off in the Bella Vista district.This district was established on the other side of the river and was deemed to be the B side of Santiago where all the immigrants, monks, mental hospital was put to keep away from the better part.Today, it's now where the arty and bohemian people live and socialise, still alongside many Arab and Chinese immigrants.This is also where we were also told about the famous Chilian communist poet, come politician named Pablo Neruda and we went to see his house (really his mistresses house) La Chascona.

We then headed over to the main fruit and vegetable market, where we stopped to take a wander round and then stopped for a drink.Martin went all out and tried the local peach drink, which came with a while peach, grains (like barley) and was black.Marie drank more than Martin.Surprise Surprise…. (though she wouldn't order it and went for the safety of coffee).

We then headed across the river to the fish market and again took a wander round and then we went to the main square named Plaza de Armas and our guide explained what each of the buildings were and the history of the first colonial settlement.

We stopped by at the Fine Art museum (closed still from Earthquake) before heading back.The tour was really good and it was fun to be riding around the city.

During the tour, there had been a few conversations on earthquakes because Chile has the most amount of earthquakes in the world.The woman told us when we'd got back that the news had just said that whilst we were out on the bikes, there'd been a tremor of around 5 - Scary.

When the original settlers decided on Santiago as the capital, it was because one of the three must haves demanded by the king was a hill where you could see any potential enemies approaching, so we decided to take a wander to the top.It gave great views over the city.

The weather wasn't exactly warm, so we decided to head for a tea.Whilst we'd be on the tour, the guide had told us that Chile had always been a massive tea drinking country, so when they wanted to introduce coffee, they had to come up with a way to get people to drink it.The novel idea that they came up with was to serve it in basically strip bars!So as we headed into our coffee shop, it wasn't quite a strip bar but the waitresses were all girls in short, tight dresses and high heels.Needless to say most people in there were men.

We were still suffering from jet lag and after having some food and watching a film (so we didn't sleep at 8pm), we slept like babies!

Day 3 - Santiago

After 11 hours of sleep, we got up and moved hostels because the current one couldn't extend our original booking.After dropping our bags off, we went to the bus station to sort out tickets to San Pedro de Atacama and were pretty surprised at the 22 hour journey.Nice.

We then went to find the national history museum to find out more about Pinochet and the military rulers, only to find that our 2004 Lonely Planet guide was a little out of date!!They had moved the building but luckily we stumbled across the memory museum and had a look around there.We came away understanding a lot more about what Chile had been through and how the Chilean people had fought so well for their freedom and demoracy.

Day 4 - Bus Ride

After a little worrying time waiting for a taxi that never turned up and then managing to flag one down in the street, we got to the bus station and boarded the bus.It was nice of the conductor but worrying anyway when he told us to keep an eye on our bag "up there", in the cheaper seats.

The bus left at 9:30 and we spent the whole day on it.