We were glad to be in Valparaiso and at Luna Sonrisa once more, where Sol welcomed us back - and Felicity was still in residence (really good to see her again too).It was lovely to spend the afternoon just wandering around the narrow streets soaking up the atmosphere again.When we got down the hill to the port we decided to jump on the very new and modern Metro and take it to Vina del Mar.The idea was to have a walk along the coast and take in some sea air.Howeve...

Time was now limited and we had a few things to do before we left Santiago. One thing we'd deliberated over was the need to further downsize our backpacks before getting on the road. We'd obviously not been ruthless enough in Auckland so we identified a few items of clothing that were worthy of sending home. The Santiago Correo (post office) was very helpful - even with virtually no English - because M managed to explain exactly what was required. They provided a...

This was our first taste of bus travel in Chile and the Tur Bus bus to Valparaiso was really excellent - on time and very comfortable. However, for a while we were worried that we might be on the wrong bus because they seem to be quite precise about bus time, stance etc and there was a lot of chopping and changing of seats and putting people off the bus at the first couple of stops. However, it did seem to be efficient and gave us some confidence for our future j...

We are now on the other side of time and sitting at 2000ft among towering snow clad Andean mountains. Having been ahead of UK time since we set out on our journey 2 years ago, and as far ahead as any country can be, we are now 5 hours behind UK time. It is extremely strange, on our first flight over the International Dateline, to have made such a change and even a few hours into Santiago we are having great difficulty adapting to the mystery of chronology.Santiag...