When we arrived in Santiago at 10.30pm we thought we had booked the Bellavista hostel where we had stayed 2 nights previously. Unfortunately, Mike was still on NZ time though and had booked us the wrong night, so a small trek across town led us to another hostel where there was room for the 3 of us. We freshened up, went to our favourite restaurant for some cheap food and accidently stumbled into a private party for a spanish school. After a couple of drinks and token dance we moved on to a bar that was effectively just a toilet, a roof, a bar, and a tiny 4m2 concrete dance floor that was raised 1m of the ground. I have never really thought of dance floors as dangerous places but with 30 people crammed onto a concrete platform raised off the ground it seems there is a first time for everything. With a touch of deja vu, we once more ended our Santiago night at 4.30am and hit the pillow.

The next morning we had planned to get off early to enable Alex enough time to head to the Hard Rock Cafe before catching the bus at 1pm. Unfortunately, this plan was made before the beers from the night before and so it made getting up a little tricky. With the aid of a little ncouragement from Alex we slowly managed to surface and catch the tube across town. With Alex happy and with a little time to spare we said our goodbyes and Mike formulated a plan to come with me to Patagonia. However, due to lack of planning ahead he needed a raincoat, we finally managed to find somewhere that sold raincoats that didn't cost you an arm and a leg before his card was definately turned down. After a march to a couple of different banks I volunteered my card which worked first time and we headed back to cheap seafood restaurant in the fish market for lunch. After a satisfying fish and chips we found an internet cafe, sqaured up on money and caught the overnight bus to Pucon, Southern Chile to start the Patagonia adventure.