Last day in Chile, we really have enjoyed this country and would highly recommend it to others. Today we fly out tonight at 11pm to California via Texas. We spent the day exploring the city using a hop on hop off bus whose bus stops were well hidden at times. Visited authentic market area and the main square with Cathedral and museum. Santiago is growing rapidly which is not surprising given the climate. The business district boasts a new tallest building every c...

We decided this morning to walk to the Torres which are only really viewable by walking. This is 10 miles and 5,000 feet up and 5,000 feet down. We set off at 9:50 and reached the top at 2:15. The last 500 metres is scrambling over boulders. When we got to the top it was worth it, the clouds cleared from the Torres and we got spectacular views. As we started to walk back the clouds closed in and it started to rain. It made the trip back slippery and Sue fell over...

Up early again! We went on a full day tour today of the Torres del Paine national park. This started with the cave of Megadon. This is an enormous cave caused by the sea eroding the rocks before the sea levels dropped millions of years ago. Archaeologists have discovered remains of dinosaurs and early mammals such as Sabre tooth tigers in this area. The sun was out and the wind was strong, a force 9 for those sailors (45-50 miles an hour) which made walking to th...

Good news our luggage also caught the plane. We flew to Punta Arenas which is as far south as we go. The Torres de Paine are 250 miles north of the airport. The land was very flat at first and reminded us of the lowlands of Scotland. As we drove further north along the road called "the route to the end of the world" it became more mountainous until we reached Puerto Natales, where we are staying tonight. The small town is on a sea loch about 25 miles from the Pac...

When we arrived at Puerto Vargas there were forest fires burning with smoke drifting everywhere. Yesterday the smoke intensified and it was so bad we had to shut the windows in our hotel room to keep it out. This morning we set off for the airport as planned but the smoke was thicker. On the motorway we crawled along to the toll only to find the junction to the airport closed so our driver was forced to go via Ponte Mott, this was ok until we ground to a halt aga...