Quick update - Chile

´Sending signals to outer space, hoping sometime we´ll see your smiling face´Speak To Me by Futuristic Retro Champions

Hola everyone

Happy New Year.

Just a quick update to say that we have not been affected by the volcano that erupted in Southern Chile yesterday. Although that may affect our plans to head South. Everyone in Chile is keeping an eye on the situation. Tourists have been evacuated from the area and villages and towns are on standby.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/7167639.stm

We are scheduled to get an overnight bus down to Pucon tonight, an area that shouldn't be affected, but we'll keep an eye on it.

We've had a pretty chilled time since I last wrote, with jetlag playing a part in that. We celebrated New Year with a BBQ on the rooftop of our hostel with some Australians, watching fireworks explode on the hills in the distance. It wasn't a late one though, we were in bed for 1.30am. We phoned our friend Martyn's house and it was good to speak to him and our other friends. It would have been nice to be there but we'll all be getting together on June 14th for Kenny and Marjorie's wedding. Only 6 months away!

On New Year's Day we walked around the deserted streets of the city centre, everything was closed, and discovered a nice park. We walked around the park in the blazing sunshine, a little different from the weather back home and headed back to the hostel for a chilled night.

Yesterday we had a relaxing morning, then got the metro to the main bus station to book overnight bus tickets to Pucon. The guy on the counter understood my Spanish, although it did cause him to smile. In the afternoon we met a nice Irish guy called Matthew at the hostel and headed up to an outdoor swimming pool perched high on a hill above Santiago. We walked 3 blocks from our hostel to the foot of the hill and then caught a taxi up to the pool. It was a huge outdoor pool, flanked by lush green grass and trees, with views across the city and to the Andes in the horizon. We tried taking some pictures but simply couldn't capture the view in one shot.

After a few hours at the pool Lynn and I said goodbye to Matthew who was heading for a 6pm bus ride - a 30 hour bus ride - and caught a cable car up to the very top of the hill where there is a huge statue of the Virgin Mary. We then went back down and had pizza on a rooftop restaurant across from our hostel. Two alcohol free nights in a row. We have set ourselves a target of a week!

Today we're going to visit Santiago's main museum and food market and then get our overnight bus to Pucon, unless the volcano decides otherwise. We've done quite a bit of reserahc into what we want to do in our 6 months in South America and the plan, for now anyway, is - Chile until 31st January - fly to Brazil for the carnival and another few weeks - head to Ecuador around 22nd Feb - Peru around 20th March, with a Machu Picchu hike booked for 28th March - Bolivia around the end of April for a couple of weeks and then 5 weeks in Argentina.

So adios for now amigos.

Love
Murray and Lynn
xxx