A beautiful 5 hour bus journey through the Andes left us feeling a little bit sad that we were leaving South America and as we'd not heard great things about Santiago we weren't massively looking forward to it, seeing it as more of just somewhere we had to stay before getting our flight to New Zealand. Low expectations are sometimes a brilliant thing though; Santiago is a great city. As soon as we got off the metro with all our bags (there are a few more now as we've shopped fairly efficiently around Bolivia), somebody stopped and offered us help and directions. Every time we put down our bags to check the map or work out what we were doing, somebody else would stop and ask us if we needed any help. A good start, but other than the friendliness of the people, Santiago centre is really interesting, and as good as any other city we've been to. We had a fantastic meal in the fish market where all the fish is laid out on ice, monster crabs, sea urchins, prawns and fish of all sizes. That was a real highlight, other than walking through the raw fish slop in flip flops. There are a few good viewing points over the city too which we visited for some more photo opportunites. It's also small enough to walk around to find the great food, good shops, and see some interesting architecture. More than enough to keep us entertained and enjoy our final few days in South America and do what we've been doing for the last 8 months for the last time.

… pisco sours; red wine; ice-cream; haggling; trying to speak Spanish; feeling like we can speak Spanish; feeling like we can't speak Spanish; admiring or avoiding the local dogs which incidentally get much bigger as the countries get richer; being shocked by the number of pharmacies on every street; admiring the well behaved children and babies who are carried everywhere; avoiding pigeons in town squares; getting in collectivos for a cheap and squashed ride; climbing up things to get a view; climbing up things because they are there; stubbing our toes on the dodgy pavements; falling into holes created by trees in the same dodgy pavements; eating eggs and bread for breakfast, set menu almuerzos for lunch - always with sopa, beautiful beef steaks for dinner; being scared by taxi drivers; being scared crossing the road; dodgy hostels; dodgy beds; dodgy backpackers; being relieved our backpacks weren't stolen off the bus; getting travelsick; meeting fantastic locals; meeting interesting travellers; reading Robert Fisk; a history of the Middle East (2,000 pages down, 2,000 pages to go); writing a journal; writing a blog; calling home; skyping with success; skyping with no success; and changing muchos Peruvian nappies!

It has been a wonderful 8 months and we have seen and experienced so much and met so many great people, the memories we have of South America will stay with us forever.