My first experience of Santiago was a somewhat confused one as having left Auckland in New Zealand at 6pm on 30 April I crossed the international date line and found myself landing in Santiago at 1.15pm on the same day...so it was a bit like groundhog day, living the same day twice, only with very little sleep in between!

Upon first glance Santiago doesn't look like much more than another big city. And to be fair a short wander around on my first day didn't reveal much more. It was a bit of a culture shock getting back to more basic surroundings after spending so long in Australia and New Zealand and the poverty was immedately obvious, even just on the drive in from the airport. But I think the problem was that I'd had very little sleep again the night before as jet leg had reared it's ugly head and after about 1am I was tossing and turning for a good four or five hours before I eventually managed fell back to sleep (great if you need some quality thinking time though!). But together with an Irish girl Julie, who was suffering the same problems as she'd come in on the same flight, we did stumble around a walking tour of the city, courtesy of the Lonely Planet's guidance. However, this particular day was also a national holiday in Chile so the city was pretty much deserted and many things closed so that didn't help it's overall appeal...

Needless to say after a few hours we collapsed back in the hostel to find that Liverpool were playing Chelsea in the Champions League semi-final so we settled down to an afternoon of English football - when in Chile and all that!

But the hostel itself was really nice and the staff so friendly. It had free internet (a real bonus when you're travelling) and free breakfast (a real bonus at any time!), ensuite room, plenty of activites to keep you busy and a bar all for the bargain price of less than 7GBP a night. There were also some quirkyisms, which I guess I'm going to start coming across in South America, like instead of having a kettle in the kitchen they just had a huge vat to boil water in and then kept two thermos flasks on the table full of water all day!

After another restless night we decided that today's activity would be to walk up the large hill/mountain that was behind our hostel and looms over the city with a massive statue of the Virgin Mary on top. Crawling out of bed late morning meant we didn't set off until mearly lunchtime and the constant smog over the city means it can look much cooler than it actually is. We hadn't been gone long before a short climb revealed clearing smog and the sun, and therefore much warmer temperatures. We had decided to climb over 5km up a hill in the midday sun with severe jet lag - probably not one of my better ideas! But it was worth the hard work. As the road looped around the mountain we were rewarded with fantastic views all around the city. And once at the top (over 800m high) the size of the statue was overwhelming. There's even a small chapel and a large open air altar where they have regular mass services, amazing to imagine what that must be like sitting up there and looking out over the sprawling metropolis below.

We found a quicker route back down and then watched our second Champions League match of the week, although unfortunately for me Man U lost this one!