It's been a while since we've done the blog and since the last post we have finished our course (and both got graded 'excellent' which we were happy about), done a week of Spanish lessons, both got teaching jobs for March, found an apartment with two of our friends and now we're in Patagonia!! Busy busy!

It's still so hot in Santiago and despite the fact we still haven't had a drop of rain in the city, we've had two landslides in the mountains within the space of three weeks which has left the city without any water for a day at a time! That was interesting, especially as we were in a hostel with no flushing toilets!! We've also had a few very small earthquakes too which was really strange! 

We moved out of our homestay and into a hostel for a few nights before leaving for Patagonia. Staying in the hostel was brilliant - we met loads of new people and did an amazing walk around an area where a load of famous graffiti artists have been commissioned to paint the sides of three storey apartment blocks. The work is incredible and about 25 buildings have been done. We've added some of our favourite ones into the album. Each artist is given a building to work with then they come up with ideas and present it to the local residents, who get the final say. Each piece of work is really different, a few of them are political while others are just really fun.

Other than that, we've done loads of exploring round Santiago and are only just starting to realise how big it is!

We've noticed that generally, the food in Santiago is pretty crap. We've had a few decent meals, but those are usually from Peruvian, Argentinian or Japanese restaurants. Randomly, there are hundreds of sushi places in Santiago! 

We both feel that our Spanish has improved a bit (especially listening) but we have a long way to go yet so we're going to do more Spanish lessons once we're back in Santiago. We've met some Chileans so hopefully that will help us too! 

We're in Punta Arenas now, which is right down at the bottom of Patagonia and probably the furthest south we will ever be in our lives, unless we sign up for an Antarctic expedition!! We flew from Santiago down to Puerto Montt and stayed for one night (which was enough) and then flew down to Puntas Arenas yesterday. Despite it being summer here (and sunny) it's so cold. It doesn't get dark until after 10pm. 

We've got a trip booked to go and see the penguins which should be amazing and then in a few days time we're going to head up to Puerto Natales where we will then head into the Torres del Paine national park to do some trekking and then up into Argentina!

More very soon, I promise!!