Having perked ourselves up with an extravagant purchase on 3 nights at a luxury hotel for our final days of our travel in Brazil 6 weeks later, we dragged ourselves out of bed, grabbed some lunch and boarded a 23 hour bus journey from San Pedro de Atacama down to Santiago; covering over a third of the length of the longest country in the world! With Trevor still feeling a little under the weather, for the first time ever Sophie got to have his free snacks on the bus rather than it being the other way around, much to Trevor's heartbreak!

After 23 hours of mainly rocky desert landscape, we finally pulled up in Santiago, and successfully navigated the efficient underground system to take us within walking distance of 'Don Santiago Hostel' where we would be staying for the next few days. We spent the following day having our very own personal tour guide in the shape of 'Reuben', the lovely Chilean guy we had met on the Inca Trail and who lived in the city. As always, having someone with us who knows the area well (and who could speak the ridiculously fast and slang-filled Spanish language of Chile), made our visit even more enjoyable, and gave us the opportunity to try some of the best food and see the real sights of the region. Reuben took us to one of his favourite eating haunts in the city, where we all munched down the most enormous meat and guacamole rolls and celebrated our reunion with a beer. Next stop was at the Human Rights museum, which focused on the shocking events that had plagued Chile in what is known as the 'Pinochet Era'. The works of Pinochet, Chile's violent dictator president from 1973-1990, were clearly displayed in the museum; the military government implemented harsh measures against its perceived opponents with various reports and investigations claiming that between 1,200 and 3,200 people were killed, up to 80,000 people were interned and as many as 30,000 were tortured during the time Pinochet was in government. Additionally, as of 2011, the official number of deaths and forced disappearances stands at 3,065; an emotional wall of the museum was covered in photos of those that were still missing. After that cheery afternoon activity Reuben showed us around other areas of Santiago, exploring some of the intricate and often psychedelic street graffiti art, and to see the 'La Moneda' Palace, which now houses Chile's president.

That evening we all went for dinner and drinks in an underground bar, where we sampled the typical Chilean dish of 'Chorrillana'; a hearty but not so fine-dining meal consisting of a giant pile of chips, beef, onions and topped with fried eggs! We coupled this with another typical Chilean treat; a powerful drink called 'Terremoto' / 'Earthquake', made from a pint of sweet fermented wine, pineapple ice-cream, and grenadine...the room was filled with people drinking these creamy pink drinks, and although Reuben loved them, we were a tad unsure ourselves! After staggering a little back to our hostel, we spent the rest of the night being rapped to and provided with free Chilean wine by the manager of the hostel, a very welcoming and energetic guy called 'Pablo'; we were certainly experiencing the well-known generosity and hospitality of the Chileans.

With slightly sore heads the next day we met up with Reuben again and headed over to the bohemian district of Santiago, 'Bellavista', where we caught a bus up to the top of 'Cerro Santa Lucia' hill, which gave us some impressive views out over the city of Santiago, full of development and high-rise buildings; such a change from the South-America we had been used to up until now! Once again Reuben was keen to make us sample typical Chilean fare, this time in the form of a drink called 'Mote con huesillo', made from a sweet nectar like liquid, with dried peaches cooked in sugar, water and cinnamon, and mixed with cooked husk wheat...it's about as strange as it sounds, all going well as a sweet peach ice-tea type drink until you need to swap to a spoon to eat the sweet-corn type stuff from the bottom; a filling meal and a drink in one we found! Of course, the rest of the evening was spent with a little more eating and beer drinking before heading back!

After a nice break in developed Santiago catching up with a new-found friend, recovering from our Bolivian troubles, we ventured out a little further for a night to the nearby town of 'Valparaíso', Chile's main port, and known for its bohemian, artistic vibe and lovely vistas from the various hills scattered amongst the town. In 2003, Valparaiso was declared a world heritage site based upon its improvised urban design and unique architecture, and in 1996 the 'World Monuments Fund' declared Valparaísos unusual system of British Victorian style funicular lifts (steeply inclined carriages) one of the world's 100 most endangered historical treasures. Built upon dozens of steep hillsides overlooking the Pacific Ocean, Valparaíso boasts a labyrinth of streets filled with brightly coloured corrugated iron-clad mud and straw houses, and cobblestone alleyways, embodying a rich architectural and cultural legacy. We explored the area as part of a walking tour, which as always provided us with some really interesting insights and anecdotes of the town's history, showed us the architecture, the 'trolley-bus' transport system, took us on a ride on the funicular lifts, explained the English, German, French, North American, and Spanish influence in the area, with each nationality interestingly having their own fire station in the town, took us to view the enormous navy ships moored out to sea at the port, described how artistic graffiti murals upon walls had been created to stop more eye-sore type graffiti tags covering buildings, and took us to sample the best empanadas in town! The town had actually provided us with much more interest than we had planned for, and it was a shame that we didn't have more time to explore, having to return back to Santiago that evening, in preparation for our departure next morning!

On the 20th August it was time for us to continue on our travels through Chile, and at 9:30am we boarded the small 'Pachamama bus' which would be our transport for the next 4 days and take us to the main sights of the Lake District in Chile. Also on the bus we were joined by chilled out Shaun from Australia, S-Club 7 loving and sports mad Will from the UK, and quiet Maggie from Germany, along with our driver Francisco. Our first stop heading South was 'Pomaire', where we looked at a few souvenir shops and shared a 1kg 'pino' flavoured empanada, with a filling of seasoned ground beef, onions, raisins, black olives, and hard boiled eggs! After a quick look at the hydroelectric power generating 'Rapel Dam', we proceeded to our stop for the night in the town of 'Pichilemu'. At certain times of the year the area is home to great surf waves...not at this time; the weather was pretty drizzly and the waves non-existent, much to Trevor's disappointment who wanted to practice his new found skills from Bali. It soon became apparent that we were visiting this area of Chile in the wrong season! After having a quick wander along the black sand beach in the area, we went to attempt to watch the sunset at 'Punta de Lobos', a rocky peninsula on the coast, but were unfortunately only surrounded by grey skies.

Next morning we set of to Santa Cruz and stopped at the 'Museo de Colchagua', an expansive museum filled with old weapons, animals, and fossils, and interestingly a display of the 'Chilean Miners' disaster, with real artefacts from the rescue, including the capsule and note they sent up to say they were alive! The rest of the day was spent with a long drive down to the city of Pucon, the adventure capital of the area! However, after stopping in at an adventure company we found out that not a lot was being offered due to the poor weather conditions, including the famous hike up the snow covered Villarrica volcano in the area, as it happened to be erupting around the time of our visit! Waking up to the rain battering down on the roof of our hostel we decided that all possible excursions were off that day! Instead we donned our waterproofs and went for a wander around the lake the city was situated by, acquiring the usual gang of stray dogs that seemed to follow people around in Chile for company, and watched a mad couple go for a swim in the icy waters! That afternoon, after Will got his beers unnecessarily confiscated by a rather uptight girl working at the hostel, we instead bought some Chilean wine to sample and smuggled that into our room! That evening, while the others in the group went off to a nearby thermal spring, we both decided to stay behind and skype our friend Zach, seeing as we'd been to numerous springs during our time away! Whilst at the hostel we felt our first earthquake of our travels - only a very small tremble for a few seconds, but enough to make us realise how terrifying a much bigger one must be, with Chile being located along a highly seismic and volcanic zone; part of the Pacific Ring of Fire.

Next morning, we were lucky enough to have a short period of clear skies where we managed to spot the rather impressive sight of the Villarrica volcano looming over the city, indeed with its summit completely covered in snow-fall. That day Francisco drove us down through the beautiful '7 Lake Route', full of stunningly blue lakes back dropped by snow-capped mountains and rolling hills. We stopped a number of times during the drive to admire the views and visit characteristic small towns, and on one occasion stopped by a bridge that Sean decided to jump off into the freezing cold lake below...rather him than us; we'd been in enough cold lakes this year! That evening we stayed in one of the oldest cities in the southern hemisphere; Valdivia, standing at the confluence of three large rivers. For lunch here, Francisco took us to an indoor 'Oktoberfest' style food market, where we had a plate of various strange meats, including intestines and blood sausage...needless to say Sophie passed a few items over to a now fully recovered Trevor who devoured them with ease! We spent the rest of the afternoon wandering along one of the rivers in town and came across a rather noisy and smelly group of enormous South-American seals, lounging around on a mooring platform and waiting for food from the fishermen!

The following day our trip took us to Puerto Montt, home to one of the largest salmon aquaculture industries in the world, and it would have been rude not to try some of the fish whilst there... We also browsed a huge crafts fair and chose to bring home a useless mate tea cup as our Chilean souvenir to gather dust on a shelf, seeing as the actual tea you should drink out of it tastes vile! We spent the final evening of our Lake District tour in Puerto Varas that night, where we organised a bus to Argentina for the next day with Sean. Puerto Varas was full of character, jam packed with wooden arts and crafts shops and cosy little cafes...it would have been nice in the sun, rather than the pouring rain which was continuing to persist! Francisco told us it was the first time he'd actually seen waves on the lake the town surrounded! Next morning, after a hurried goodbye to Will and some confusion between where Francisco thought we needed dropping off, a slight language barrier, and both of us calling the same place a different thing, we arrived at the bus station with 1 minute to spare before our bus to Bariloche in Argentina departed. There was more confusion and language issues an hour into the journey when Sean, being from Australia, was asked for some sort of visa for Chile...he seemed to have the exit card that we thought was required, but it wasn't until another Aussie later explained that it was an Argentinean visa that Aussies also have to get before entering the country (the British don't need any Visas for South America luckily), that we fully understood. Unfortunately this meant Shaun was kicked off the bus until he sorted his visa out at the station and would have to catch a later one. Meanwhile we continued our way along to the Argentinean border through beautiful snow-covered forest roads, and hoped we'd see Sean a few hours later! The Lake District of Chile had been a little disappointing with the bad weather, but we had nonetheless enjoyed being carted around on the minibus for a few days and meeting a couple of characters, as well as seeing yet another completely different side to the varied continent of South-America.