Santiago, Chile (Sunday 23rd - Sat 29th Nov)

Arrived in Santiago Sunday pm after an early morning flight from Rio which included a stop in Sao Paulo to pick up more passengers.This flight was not part of our original itinerary so we had to cough up extra for this part of our journey. Like Argentina and Uruguay the currency is still the peso but we have gone from 5 argentine pesos to the pound to 10,000 chilean pesos to the pound.

First impressions were not good as it was very hot and Santiago seemed to be deserted. However it was a Sunday and in Chile nothing much is open after 4.00pm. We were staying in a lovely district called Paris Londres !- very near the centre but very peaceful full of cobbled streets. Our hostel was called Plaza Londres and our room looked out on to a courtyard.

Drink both alcoholic and non seem to have played a big part in this week. Chile is a large producer and exporter of wine and most of the vineyards are in the central region near Santiago. We visited the biggest company in South America Concha y Toro based 30 minutes south of the centre (by metro). The tour was fairly short and got a bit touristy when they took you down to the cellars to see the devil who is there apparently to scare away thieves. A better tour was to Santa Carolina winery which is located near the centre. Gwen and I were the only ones on the tour, it was more personal, the guide spoke excellent English (and was also rather attractive) and made the visit worthwhile.

Another day we took a tour to the coastal towns of Valparaiso and Vina del Mar about 90 minutes from Santiago.Valparaiso is a port but is also home to the Chilean parliament. It has some attractive, picturesque districts and somewhere you have see if you are visiting Santiago. The town is surrounded by hills and 90% of the population live on either the side or top of these hills. Vina del Mar is more of a holiday place with good beaches and is an attractive place to come in the summer as it is about 10 degrees cooler than Santiago. Again our guide was good with excellent English - probably because he had lived in London for 10 years. He told us that Chile claims to belong to 3 continents, the majority obviously in South America, the southern tip is part of Antarctica and Easter Island is part of Australasia.

As we have found the coffee in South America not to our taste we've been trying to track down a Starbucks. The last one was 5 weeks ago in Lima and ever since our hopes have been dashed. There were rumours of one in Buenos Aires hidden inside an Irish pub but we failed to find it. However Santiago abounds with them and most days we have made the odd detour to track some of them down. We have also discovered a couple of interesting drinks this week. One is called a Pisco Sour which is brandy grape juice ? lemon and egg whites and powdered sugar- very nice too. The other is called a Mote con huesillo which is a refreshing peach nectar with barley kernels and rehydrated peaches. (see photos)

Other things we've done this week include visiting a couple of museums - something we have not done much of in our travels. The best one was the Chilean Institute for Pre-Columbian art which covers much of the art of South America before the Spaniards arrived in the 16th century. We also got a taxi to the top of San Cristobel hill which gives great views of the city (or would if it wasn't for the smog). Santiago is a bit quieter than Rio or Buenos Aries and in retrospect we should probably have spent a bit more time in Rio and less here but having said that I liked the place. Everything seemed to work well including the metro and the tours and the guides we had were excellent and far better than other countries we have visited. This is our last day in South America -later today we have a 12 hour flight to Tahiti to look forward to!!