So its not so chilly here in Chile, its quite nice actually, warm evening, very warm, lovely in fact, quite quite lovely..... no snow at all anywhere even, just sunshine!!!

First impressions of Chile, apart from the unsleepablitity of their airport benches, is that its much nicer than Peru. There is hardly any beat up old cars, a lot less poor people.... and we both have noticed a lot less indigenious looking people too. It is not too disimilar to BA here, very European and American looking... this has annoyed me elsewhere but for now I am glad not to be getting stared at, because we could almost fit in here if we were dressed normally. We took a walk into town, after a few hours sleep in our hostel, Don Santiago by and they look like they have a very very very nice breakfast, plus the place looks really nice too. Anyway, went for a walk into town. Not a lot to see, and lots of places were closed. They are having a Teleton too, I guess its the same as our ones but who knows, I certainly didnt see any giant blue plastic boots!!!!! There is a hill at the north end of the town that you can go up and the views are meant to be very nice, so we might do that tomorrow. Aparently the smog gets really bad in Santiago, although today was perfect, so we will see... there is two p's in apparently by the way. Anyway, the hostel guinea pig is on the loose, which is ironic since her name is lucy, and there is some English tea on the table for us, because we are English now just like Robbie and Elaine, and all thanks to Reginas sandals!!!! Irish like tea too we have informed them, and all is cleared up

More to follow.... maybe.....

So, our last day in South America, or so we thought.... Decided we would go for a walk since our flight wasnt until late in that evening. We headed off through

town for Cerra San Lucia (Saint Lucia Hill) which has a lovely view of the city. Thankfully the smog was clear again today and the hill was quite nice with a

fortress type building built around it. The views were pretty cool too, you can even see snow capped mountains in the distance (again I feel like I am repeating

myself even though its been like about a year since we went there). In Santiago the museums are free on sundays, so we popped into a few, they were nice enough,

and after we had been to all the ones in town we headed to the old side of town to where there is a museum about the recent history of Chile and the whole General

Pinochet thing we knew nothing about, it was quite horrific to be honest, lots of dead people...

That is kind of a short version of what happened, but its more or less the highlights. After chilling out in the hostel for a bit we took the bus back to the

airport for our flight. The flight was at about 11 and we got there at about 7 and asked where we should queue. We queued where we were told for about half an hour

and got to the desk to be told it was the wrong place. Fair enough, anyone could make that mistake. Went over to the correct queue, where we bumped into Fay, the

English girl who sat beside us on the flight to Rio, and who we bumped into in Ilha Grande. She told us that the flight had been delayed by 12 hours, of course we

assumed she was taking the michael, but then a little man in a suit came over and told us all that we would be delayed because "the plane is broken", nobody likes

to hear that!!!! We were told we would be put in a hotel and given dinner and the lot.... ok, fair enough, the plane IS broken after all. So we had to queue anyway

to check in and get details of the hotel. In the mean time, a french girl who Fay had just acquired as company told us she had had a nightmare the night before

about the plane crashing in the sea (ehhhhhhhhh!!!!!). Anyway, five hours later we reach the counter, no food or water yet, and we are told we are going to the

International Hotel or something or other, its 20 minutes away.... its already too late for dinner we know. We sit on the bus for a further half an hour before

being driven to the hotel, told to get off, and then go into the hotel to find out we are not staying here but up the street. Up the street we go to find our bags

on the side of the road with nobody minding them, and into the hotel we go (very angry by now). Eventually, I think it was about half one, we get to our room,

still no food or water. Too angry to do anything about it we both try to get some sleep before breakfast. Thankfully breakfast is included!!!! We stuff our faces,

and head off to the airport on the bus, waaaay too early again but at least it gives us time to relax our anger in the aiport. We check in our bags, and head to

give out a bit. We are calmed down by vouchers for breakfast upstairs (breakfast number 2). We are told to help ourselves and then get told after that we can just

have a sandwich.... too late. Then, since all we wanted was water we get some bottles and are told it is included in the voucher, drink them and head off. Next

thing the lady comes down the stairs to tell us we have to pay..... Long story short we go back up, talk to her boss, who spoke english, and all is settled. We

then get on the plane, more delays.... and off we go, cramped in for 14 hours... yay!!!

Well thats the end of South America, thank you for reading so far, I hope that the rest can be as boring and uninteresting as this has been (only messing). We are

in New Zealand, and the internet isnt free anymore, so the blogs might not be daily... anyway, next stop Auckland......