Chile

We had a quiet end to the month of January. We were quite tired from a number of overnight buses and we also wanted to chill out before the Rio Carnival. So you may want to skip this section of the blog and move on to the Rio section!

Saturday January 26th
The day started early as we had a bus at 7am. The bus crossed the border back into Chile and we reached our destination around 2pm. We discovered that there was a beer festival on, good timing. The sun was shining so we checked into the Buenos Aires Hostel, ditched our bags and headed for a few beers and hotdogs. The local brewery Kunstmann put on a massive beer festival every year and have loads of German dancing, drinking games etc.

When we arrived the main tent wasn´t open so we had a couple of beers and German hotdogs sitting in the sunshine. We then wandered back into town and booked an overnight bus to Santiago for the night of the 28th. We returned to the beer festival at night and watched a load of Chileans act like Germans complete with traditional costumes and dancing games. If you´ve ever seen National Lampoons European Vacation, it was a bit like that!

Sunday January 27th - My 32nd Birthday
We didn´t make breakfast as we woke up at 11am. We obviously needed the rest after our early morning bus and beer festivities the day before. We had a very relaxing day strolling around a park, by the river and around a market. We booked flights from Lima to Cusco for our Inca Trail hike in March and got a good deal of $211 for the three of us (our friend Craig is coming out for that).

We phoned our folks and had a very quiet night in, deciding to save my birthday celebrations until Rio. We watched the Jack Black movie ´School Of Rock´ and had an early night.

Monday January 28th
Overnight buses are, in theory, a good idea. You sleep through the night and wake up in a new town or City. However you have to spend a day waiting for the bus and when you arrive you tend to be pretty tired after a broken sleep. Valdivia is a pretty riverside town on the West Coast of Chile, but there isn´t a great deal to do in it. We did go on a short boat cruise in the afternoon, but we spent the rest of the day killing time until the bus left at 10pm.

Tuesday 29th January
The bus arrived in Santiago at 8am. It was our most luxurious bus yet with loads of leg room, seats that reclined to almost 180 degrees, a waiter serving snacks and drinks and the usual dodgy film. We headed back to the Bella Vista Hostel, where we stayed when we first arrived in Chile. We slept for a while and had a late lunch. I treated myself to a lovely swordfish steak and Lynn had a massive steak sandwich. We wandered round the shops and Lynn bought a nice dress for the carnival and I got a new shirt. At night we had some drinks in the funky Bella Vista Social Club and then pizza and a bottle of wine.

Wednesday 30th January
We woke at 11am but we hadn´t slept well as some people had been out clubbing and woke us up coming back into the hostel. After breakfast we headed back up to the outdoor pool on the hillside above Bella Vista and had a pleasant afternoon sunbathing, snoozing and swimming.

At night the Manchester United v Portsmouth game was on ESPN. The hostel has a brilliant lounge with widescreen TV, so I plonked myself down in front of that and watched Cristiano Ronaldo continue is amazing streak of form with two brilliant goals, the second being a screamer of a free-kick. In this form Ronaldo could win the Champions League for United. Portsmouth were dire and United should have scored a lot more.

We had an early night and dreamt of the carnival, football and samba dancing.

´Time may change me, but I can´t change time´Changes by David Bowie

Hola everyone

We´re in Patagonia in Southern Chile and late last night we returned from 4 days trekking in the absolutely stunning Torres Del Paine National Park. It was a pleasure to trek in such a beautiful and diverse part of the world with glaciers, mountains, lakes, rivers, streams, condors circling overhead and plenty of fresh air. Details of what we have been up to since I last wrote are noted below.

Monday January 7th
We got up at 8am, had breakfast and checked out at 9am. We walked to the bus stop and the 10am bus left at 10.20am. We both conked out for the first two hours of the trip, which was good as it killed some time. We arrived in Puerto Montt around 3pm. There was a light drizzle in the air and Puerto Montt didn´t strike us as being a nice place. It´s an essential stop though for travellers heading further south in Chile.

We checked into a hotel for the night and wandered around town, breaking the rule of no MacDonalds for the third time in 6 months. Sometimes you just feel like junk food and a real sugar rush from a regular Coke. Well I do anyway! After that we booked a flight from Puerto Montt to Puerto Arenas at the very reasonable price os $125US for the two of us. We only booked a single flight as we didn´t know how long we wanted to stay down south. After a wander by the harbour we had an early night.

Tuesday January 8th
Quite a long day. The alarm woke us at 7am and after a light breakfast we were back at the bus station at the back of 8am for the 8.30am bus to the airport. Our flight left at 11.10am, an hour late. Lynn sat next to a Spanish girl who filed and painted her nails for the whole 2 hour flight.

After picking up our bags we found the bus into town was full but someone sorted us out with a lift for 4 quid and we got dropped off at the door of our hostel. The hostel looked a little rundown from the outside but the owners son Allessandro welcomed us with a big smile and it was cosey and homely inside. We walked into town and booked the bus to Puerto Natales for 2pm the next day and got a bite to eat. Back at the hostel Allesandro had decided to have a BBQ for dinner so we all chipped in 3 pounds each for meat and wine. We met a nice English couple called Dave and Louise, an English girl called Teresa and an American called Jacob and chatted away while Allessandro readied the BBQ. It took a while!

Allessandro´s brother is a dentist in Buenos Aires and happens to be the dentist for Diego Armando Maradonna! A photo of Allessandro and Maradonna takes pride of place in the hostel. I was pretty jealous and it brought back memories of the 1986 World Cup when I was ten. Maradonna almost literally won the World Cup single handedly for Argentina. His solo run against England and his two against Belgium in the semi final were moments of football genius.

Anyway, the BBQ was eventually ready at midnight! Chileans take their time preparing food. After a week off alcohol we had a couple of glasses of red wine with the meal - steak, some excellent sausages, veg and all kinds of stuff. Allessandro and some of the other hostel guests were raving about the steak in Argentina. Can´t wait for that!

Wednesday January 9th
We didn´t surface until 10am and had breakfast chatting to a nice Englisg guy called Ritchie that had just arrived. We hung around until 1pm and then walked to the bus stop for 1.30pm. The bus left promptly at 2pm and we were delighted to discover that it was brand new with big leather seats, loads of leg room and a toilet for emergencies. We slept for a bit and arrived in Puerto Natales at 5pm and wandered to the hostel we had booked that morning.

A cool dreadlocked guy called Rodriguez answered the door and told us he was just finishing preparing our room. He was still making the bed - actually building it! We dumped our bags and walked to the main square and had a lovely meal of beef, mashed potatoes and veg in a red wine sauce. While walking back to our hostel we bumped into Dave and Louise who had got an earlier bus and went for a few drinks with them. They are travelling for 3 months in South America and 3 months in South Africa. We ended up playing table football and unfortunately Dave´s Liverpool beat my United 5-4 in two thrilling games with both teams playing adventurous 2-5-3 formations.

Thursday January 10th
We had a nice long lie until 10.30am and then got up to sort out our Torres Del Paine trekking. That in itself wasn´t too much of a problem, however we were told that if we paid in US dollars it would be cheaper. Changing Chilean money into US dollars was a problem. Rodriguez and I went around 5 places that all refused to change more than $100US. We eventually found the only place in town that would give us the $400US and had to wait an hour in a queue. Still by 3pm it was all sorted and we felt that it was great value. For $200us each we stayed in refugio´s (glorified and very nice hostels) each night and got all our meals.

At night we went to meet Dave and Louise, stopping off at a second hand shop and each buying two retro ski jumpers for 2 pounds 50p each. After that we went for a lovely meal with Dave and Louise at a pizza and pasta place called Mesitta Grande. We then went back to the pub for a few games of table football and United won two games.

Friday January 11th
Ooh it was a 6.20am alarm today. We got up and had breakfast and waited for the 7.30am bus to Torres Del Paine, which eventually arrived at 8am. We slept on the bus and woke two hours later at the park. We were swiftly transferred to a boat that took us across Lago Pehoe. The scenery was already pretty spectacular.

We checked into our refugio and after sandwiches we set off on our first trek. A 22km round trek to Glacier Grey and back. We moved swiftly as we had set off at 1.30pm and were giving ourselves around 8 hours for the trip, so we would be back for dinner!

We wound up a couple of hills until we were walking alongside Lago Grey, glistening and shimmering in the sunlight, with chunks of ice that had broken from the glacier floating peacefully on the surface. It took us almost exactly 3.5 hours to reach the Mirador (lookout) to Glacier Grey. We had caught glimpses of it on the way but up close it took our breath away. A seemingly endless stream of ice stretched in front of us. I´ll upload some photos to flickr later. I hope they do it justice. You could always do a google search to see some professional photos.

After a break for a sandwich we headed back and made good time, getting back at 8pm with time for a shower and change of clothes before dinner. We met and chatted to a nice English couple called Ben and Sheena and also Ritchie who was camping but had sneaked into the reugio for dinner. We were sharing a room with two Swiss girls and we chatted to them before crashing out at 10.30pm.

Saturday January 12th
The alarm went off at 8am and we prepared for our hike. We were heading from Refugio Paine Grande to Refugio Los Cuernos, around 13km. It was going to be tough as we had to carry all our stuff. We had left some stuff at the hostel in Puerto Natales but we still had around 10kg each to carry in our backpacks. The sun was shining after an early morning shower and we really enjoyed our days treeking along the banks of Lago Nordenskjold. We met Teresa about an hour into the trek and walked with her until her campsite at Campamento Italiano. We sat on a pebbly beach just before we got to our refugio and marvelled at the natural beauty surrounding us.

We had a shower and a relaxing afternoon playing travel draughts. At night we had dinner with Ben and Sheena who were camping outside and headed for an early night at 10pm.

Sunday January 13th
Woke up at 8am and organised our bags before breakfast. We had a 12km walk with our backpacks along the Lake to Hosteria Los Torres. We walked for 4.5 hours and the backpacks didn´t feel as heavy. I suppose we were used to it. We checked into the hostel in the afternoon and enjoyed a couple of beers and a nice chilled night. In the distance we could see the rising peaks of where we would be climbing to tomorrow. We had a quiet night and chatted to a dutch couple for a bit.

Monday January 14th
We left our big bags in the hostel and set off up the mountainside towards Glacier Torres and the 4 peaks that dominate the skyline of the park. The first hour or so was completely uphill, but after 45 minutes we got into our stride and motored on. We wound down into the valley beside a stream and then back up again through a wooded area. We then got to the final ascent, a one hour scramble up some rocks to the viewing area. It was a real scramble but great fun. It was quite cloudy at the top, it wasn´t as sunny as the previous two days, but the clouds parted at times to allow us a beautiful view of the peaks. We met a nice Italian couple at the top and then Ben and Sheena appeared so we ended up spending over an hour at the top.

On the way back down we bumped into the Italian couple sitting on a rock by a stream about 3/4 of the way down. The guy looked in real pain and his girfriend informed me that he had slipped and his shoulder had popped out. Thankfully a guide was leading a group of older people behind us and I managed to flag him down and with his first aid knowledge he ´popped´the shoulder back into place. Ouch!

We enjoyed a leisurely walk back to the hostel as our bus wasn´t until 7.30pm. We had a shower and a couple of beers before the bus back to Puerto Natales, checking back into our hostel at 10pm and heading out for a pizza immediately afterwards!

Tuesday January 15th
Had a long lie until 10am and we´re now just deciding what to do next. Puerto Natales is a nice wee town so we may stay a couple more nights to chill out and then head back to Puerto Arenas and try and book a flight to Puerto Montt. From there we may get a bus to a town called Bariloche in Argentina for 4/5 nights, but we´ll wait and see.

Off for some lunch now.

Love
Murray and Lynn
xxx

´Life is just a precious minute baby, open up your eyes and see it baby, give yourself a better a chance because time wiill pass you, right on by´Time Will Pass You By by TobI Legend

Hola everyone

I can´t remember if I have used those lyrics to open a previous blog, but they are very apt and ´Time Will Pass You By´is a song I´ve been listening to a lot on our travels.

We´re in the lovely lakeside town of Pucon. Tomorrow we are heading further south to Puerto Montt and we then intend to try and get down to Torres Del Paine. Yesterday we climbed an active volcano, it´s not every day you can say that!

This is what we have been up to since I last wrote.

Thursday 3rd & Friday 4th January
We wandered around Santiago, visiting a museum containing some amazing Inca and pre-Columbian works of art, tools and artefacts. One of the exhibitions also had a series of inca statues in a series of sexual positions. The statues were used to symbolise the journey from life to death and back again. From looking at the statues and reading the descriptions I can only imagine that the Inca´s had a grand old time of it.

After that we hung around for the rest of the day at our hostel, our decision to keep our room on proved wise, meaning we could snooze and shower before our overnight bus journey. We caught a cab at 10pm with an Australian couple, James and Claire, to the bus station. We also met a Scottish couple over on holiday. The bus left promptly at 10.55pm. It was pretty comfy with plenty of leg space and reclining chairs. In fact I would say it was more comfy than a lot of planes we have been on.

We slept quite a bit of the way and blanked the rest of the journey out by using eyemasks and listening to our i-pods. We arrived in Pucon at 9am and headed to Hostal Pucon, booking in for 3 nights for a total cost of 60 quid. Pucon is pretty expensive for accomodation, especially just now as it is near peak time. Our hostal, like a lot of Pucon, is modelled on Swiss Challeys and is very nice.

We headed into town and bought some food for breakfast and then headed back for a bite to eat and a snooze. After that it was back into town to book on to a volcano tour for the next day. We booked on one at 35 pounds per person (there are no pound signs on these computers), with a 7am start.

At night we had a bite to eat sitting outside a little bar, gazing up at the 2,827 metre high volcano in the distance with smoke coming out of the top, wondering how on earth we were going to manage to climb it. Also managed to speak to my Mum on the phone, which is always good.

Saturday 5th January
The alarm went off at 6.05am, so technically we were not getting up at 6am, but pretty close to it. We had packed our gear the night before and after a light breakfast of yoghurt and banana we headed to the adventure companies office. We were kitted out in ski boots, waterproof jackets and trousers, as well as being given a rucksack with gloves, a hat, crampons (which were not required), a thing for putting on your bum (more about that later), an ice axe and a helmet.

Along with our 3 guides we had 2 Brazilian twins (female and blonde in case you wondered), a Chilean family of 4 and 3 Canadians. By the time we were kitted out and drove to the start it was 9am. The drive had climbed 1,400 metres to the ski lifts used in ski season. So we only had 1,427 metres to go.

We started off on rocky volcanic soil. The lead guide went at a nice steady pace, not fast at all. His experience shone throughout the whole day and his pace helped most people. After an hour we reached snow and it was time to out on our helmets as we continued to climb. By this stage the Mum and Dad of the Chilean family decided they were knackered and dropped out. Sadly the Brazilian twins did as well. One guide led the Chileans down while the Brazilians waited for him to return so they could join us later.

The snow was pretty soft and we followed our guide in single file, his footprints meant that we always knew where to walk. At times teh snow became hard and icey and we found that it was sometimes harder to get a good grip, but our ice axe meant that we always had something to lean on.

We climbed on with the sun beating down. Lynn and I had wisely bought some factor 50 (war paint) sunscreen teh previous day and we were glad of it. There was no shade at all. We rested for lunch at 12pm and admired the views out to Pucon, Lake Villarrica and beyond. The views rival anything in the South Island of New Zealand and that is saying something.

We soldiered on and scrambled over some volcanic soil and rocks just before the top and finally made it at 2pm. The smoke rose from the volcano and the smell of sulphur was overpowering at times. That didn´t stop us from walking around the rim of the volcano with the guide but we didn´t see any lava, just some red rocks that had been spat out.

The volcano last erupted in 1984 and is overdue an eruption by at least 4 years. The views from the top were amazing but the best part was yet to come. Our guide instructed us to strap on the things for our bums. Extra padding as we were going to slide back down the volcano!

We clambered back over the first rocky section down to the snow. In peak season around 200-300 people a day climb the volcano and there are slides cut into the snow all the way down. So we all proceeded to slide back down the volcano. It was the most fun we have had in ages. We were like kids. Some slides were pretty steep and if you didn´t use your ice axe to slow down you flew down them. I went too fast a couple of times and ended up spinning around and going backwards, but as it was snow you couldn´t hurt yourself.

It only took us 2 hours to get back down the volcano and it was absolutely magic fun. I can´t recommend it highly enough. We met the Brazilian twins halfway down and they slid down the rest of the way with us. Great fun. Unfortunately one of the Canadian girls lost her camera on one of the slides. Nightmare! We regularly upload photos and get cd´s burnt to send home as losing photos is just your worst nightmare.

We got back to Pucon after 5pm and went straight to our hostel for a shower, getting the volcanic dust out of our ears and nose was a relief and we felt brand new afterwards. Our room has a TV and ESPN had a replay of the United v Villa cup match so I caught the last 20 minutes of that. United won 2-0 with Ronaldo and Rooney scoring. United look to be in good form and Giggs looked fantastic. 34 and still going strong.

We had dinner around 8pm and then sat and watched a terrible film called ´Terminal´with Tom Hanks before sleeping soundly after our day on the volcano.

Sunday 6th January
We´ve had a quiet day today. Getting up late, doing a washing, booking bus tickets to Puerto Montt and finally booking flights from Brazil to Ecuador. We have been monitoring the price for ages but it´s not going down, so we have bitten the bullet and gone for it. It saves us backtracking if we go to Brazil-Ecuador-Peru-Bolivia-Argentina.

We may head down to the lake for a quick swim before dinner and packing our bags.

Take it easy
Murray and Lynn
xxx

´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

´Maybe I just wanna fly, wanna live but don´t wanna die´ Live Forever by Oasis

Hello from Santiago in Chile. I´ve just logged on to update the blog and I went to check the football scores to find that Motherwell captain Phil O´Donnell has past away suddenly through a seizure. O´Donnell was only 35. It´s sad news. O´Donnell was instrumental in helping Motherwell win the Scottish Cup in 1991 when he burst on to the scene. I remember standing on the old terraces at Hampden that day. The game was named the ´friendly final´as the McLean brothers Tommy and Jim managed Motherwell and Dundee United respectedly. Motherwell won an outstanding game 4-3 in extra time. Ally Maxwell made several outstanding saves and O´Donnell scored one of the goals. Motherwell are flying high this season and O´Donnell´s experience has been essential in helping the younger players. My thoughts are with his family and Motherwell FC.

On to some more positive news. We are now in South America for 6 months of adventure. We haven´t been up to too much since I last wrote as Fiji was very chilled.

Friday 21st December
We got up at 8am, had a shower and said goodbye to Jennifer who was the perfect hostess. The night before we had Christmas dinner in the garden in beautiful sunshine. I wonder what we´ll be doing next year in Scotland!

We finished packing and stopped off at my Great Aunt Betty´s for one last hug and kiss goodbye. I was quite emotional and had a tear in my eye as we drove away. At 92 Betty is the last link to a generation of old in my family. It was fantastic to spend so much time with her and hear stories of years gone by. Lynn and I promised we would be back for her 100th birthday.

We flew out to Fiji and arrived at 4pm. We checked into the Aquarius Hotel for the night and had a few drinks with a well travelled Irishman called`Paul. We went to watch a fire dance show at the hotel next door and it was pretty spectacular. We all ended up dancing with the locals.

Saturday 22nd December
Alarm went off at 6am and we got picked up to go to our ferry at 7.15am. As we only had a week in Fiji we decided to pick a nice resort on one of the furthest away islands and stay there for 5 nights. Most people travel from island to island but we were in the mood to chill for a week. Our resort was called Coral View and it took 4 hours to get there by boat.

We checked in to a nice ´bure´, a funky hut near the beach. After lunch we sat in hammocks and swam in the warm ocean. The staff sang a Fiji welcome song at dinner and we chatted to a nice Irish guy called Keith who told us a few good storis all strangely involving alcohol.

Sunday 23rd December
Bit of a washout. It chucked it down all day!

Monday 24th December
Ah sunshine. Lots of it! After breakfast we booked to go on a boat trip to some caves. It took around an hour to get there and we passed by some remote islands on the way. I don´t think we will ever be so far away from home again. We beached up at an island and climbed into a cave and jumped into a lovely pool. It wasn´t cold at all. We had the option of swimming underwater to another cave that was in complete darkness. You only had to go under for 5 seconds but it was quite nerve wracking. We followed the guides torch and it was a relief to feel his hand on my head - the signal to come up.

Two of the guides climbed the inside of the first cave and jumped in from around 10 metres, holding their breath for ages underwater to make people think something had happened to them. When we got back top the boat Lynn realised she had lost her snorkel from her mask and a guide went back into the cave and found it on th bottom, about 7 metres deep!

On the way back we stopped at a fish market, all the fishermen came back with their catched and dumped them into a pool created by their wives and locals bought from the widest variety of fish you could ever imagine.

We had a very lazy afternoon on the hammocks reading - pretty much what we did for the rest of the time in Fiji. Met a nice couple from Finland called Nina and Mikal and had dinner with them. Had drinks after with Rose and Sam from England and Greg and Tess from Oz.

Tuesday December 25th
Blazing sunshine on Christmas Day. Brilliant! We went on a snorkelling trip afer breakfast to the Blue Lagoon. There was some nice coral and some very colourful fish and one big one that swam right at me and caused me to panic and Lynn to laugh underwater.

After a post lunch siesta we hung out on the hammocks and went for the occassional dip in the sea. Dinner was a traditional Fijian dish, cooked underground - chicken, pork, fish, veg.....lovely.

All the staff and their families sang a song and Rose´s Mum got up to lead us in a rendition of the 12 days of Christmas, which we murdered.

The staff built a bonfire on the beach and a few of us sat out for a bit to finish our beer before heading to bed.

Wednesday Dec 26th
We had a very lazy morning reading on the hammocks and then booked a fishing trip for 2pm. One of the locals called Simon took us out on a small boat. I thought it would be easy to catch fish in Fiji. I was wrong.

There is a real knack to getting them on the hook when they bite. Simon had no problems and caught 8, while Lynn caught 1. I caught a big fat zero. There is always next time.

It was Rose´s 21st birthday so we all got up to play a balloon game after dinner. You picked a partner, danced in a circle and whoever ended up holding the balloon being passed around had to burst a balloon and do the challenge inside. It was all good natured and I had a lovely Fijian girl as my partner and Lynn had a big Fijian guy as her partner. Two nights previously Lynn had won musical statues with this guy. He was so big he was a statue most of the time!

Thursday 27th December
Had a lazy morning on the hammocks and left Coral View after lunch. The staff sang their farewell song to us and we were quite sad to leave. The staff were so friendly, always smiling and singing. So would I if I lived and worked there!

We went back to the main island and checked into a nice hotel called Grand West Villas, had dinner, watched some rubbish American sitcoms and went to sleep.

Friday 28th December
Alarm went a 6am and we got a taxi to the airport at 6.30am. Our flight at 8.45am was on time and we arrived in Auckland at 1pm. Our bags were checked right through to Fiji so we chilled out for a few hours before hopping on board our flight at 5.30pm. The flight was pretty smooth. I watched ´Hairspray´and I surprised myself be enjoying it. I also watched Rush Hour 3, pretty predictable but still funny at times. Lynn watched Hairspray and the December Boys.

We slept a bit but not properly and arrived in Santiago at 12.10pm, while it was 4.10am on the 29th in Auckland. We had travelled back in time. Marty McFly eat yur heart out.

We jumped a cab to our hostel and went straight to sleep. Our hostel is called Bella Vista and is in a really cool part of Santiago, about 20 minutes walk from the centre and in the Bella Vista district. It´s full of tree lined streets, cafes, bars and independent shops. It reminds me a bit of Glasgow´s West End.

We went out and had a couple of beers outside a wee pub. Escudo beers are pretty good if you cAn track them down in the UK. We went a walk and I bought a cool Santiago t-shirt and ice cream and then we wnt back to bed.

Saturday 29th December
Woke around 10am and were pretty tired. It may take a couple of days to recover from our time travel. We did some washing and enquired about a Spanish course only to find it was full. So we´ll need to practice from our phrase book!

We got a bite to eat in a cool square just round from our hostel and walked into the centre. We bought some essentials and wandered round the National Museum of Fine Art before heading back for a siesta.

We had dinner at a lovely Mexican just round from our hostel and went back to read and chill out. Couldn´t get to sleep due to jet lag. The siesta from earlier probably didn´t help.

Sunday 30th December
We slept till 11am as we didn´t get to sleep until late. We´ve had brunch and I´ve updated the blog and flickr while Lynn searches for flights from Rio to Quito, unfortunately it doesn´t look like there are any cheap flights.

Our proposed route for South America is - Chile, fly to Brazil for the carnival, fly to Ecuador, then travel overland to Peru, Bolivia and on to our final country, Argentina.

The trickiest part is going to be getting out of Brazil as it is such a vast country. We could go overland into Peru and then ino Ecuador, but that would take ages so we might just bite the bullet and fly. We´ll see.

We plan to wander around town and chill ahead of New Year´s Eve tomorrow. It should be good in Bella Vista. We might also book a bus to head down to the Lake District after New Year before gong on to the Torres Del Plaine National Park for week of hiking.

Have a great New Year and speak to you in 2008.

Love
Murray and Lynn
xxx