My brother Tim's birthday.

We were getting a mid-afternoon bus to Santiago and so spent the morning visiting the upmarket coastal resort of Viña del Mar.

We caught the Valparaiso metro there, about half an hour's journey, and then as ever struggled to find our way around. After baffling a few locals with our apparently simple question "donde es el mar?" we eventually stumbled upon the seafront.

It looks like an upmarket seaside resort, hard to describe it any other way. The beach is fine, not great, and is lined with towering apartment blocks varying from crumbling 1960s to brand spanking new. Surprisingly few hotels, guess they try to keep it exclusive. We spent a pleasant couple of hours wandering along and having a picnic lunch on the beach - a welcome break from the chips and fried meat so beloved of S America.

And that's about all I can say about Viña del Mar. We headed back to Valparaiso, grabbed our bags and caught the bus to Santiago.

This is so dull I'll stop now and push the evening in Santiago into the next blog!! This is really only to put a pin in the map.