Santiago, Chile

I am sure you will all be relieved to hear that the final bus ride of this trip was a success. We drove through the Andes and as you can imagine the views were something else.











































Mind you, some of the roads were a little too close to the edge for my liking, and I am sure the driver went as close to the edge as possible, just to shake us all up a bit.











































The only faff was the border crossing which seemed to take ages. We were all lined up as our bags were scanned, and some people were called over to explain what was in theirs. It was like being in detention.

Anyway, we arrived in Santiago on the 27th without any dramas. We are staying with Irish Frainc (who we met in Rio and then on Ilha Grande) and his Belgian girlfriend, Patricia. They are expats living here so we were invited to come and stay with them in their lovely serviced-apartment. It was great just being able to sit on a sofa! No sooner had we arrived than we were out on the beer. Obviously living with locals has it's benefits. They know all the best restaurants and watering holes. We went on a little tour and had a great first night here. We went to an Irish bar (which is the first we have been to in South America) and a bar called 'One Nine One', which is owned by an English expat friend of Frainc's. It was a bit wierd drinking a pint again.

We met Frainc for lunch on Friday and then had a bit of a look around. This involved going to a park called Cerro Santa Lucia and enjoying the smog filled views of the city. We also went to a museum, the best bit of which was leaving it. H would disagree.

We went back to 'One Nine One on Friday night, this time to eat. H and I had the Ostrich which was a first for the both of us, and very tasty. I had deep fried ice cream for desert and definitely wouldn't have it again. I'm a huge ice cream fan, and have been treated to some amazing stuff in Argentina (mainly thanks to the country's Italian heritage), but as far as I am concerned, it should be kept well away from the deep fat frier. We went to a part of town called Bella Vista afterwards for some cocktails.

Saturday was a lazy day. I woke up at 10am and put the TV on, expecting to watch a Saturday afternoon Premiership game on Fox Sports. Unfortunately there wasnt any on as the Copa Libertadores is on at the moment(which is a football tournament involving most of the teams in South America). I did manage to catch the news that Chelski won the Premiership again, but more worring than that, the news that Rooney could be out of the World Cup. What is it about metatarsals and World Cups?

After a tasty Irish breakfast Frainc and Patricia took us to fancy arts and crafts place with lots of animals locked up in very small cages. H bought a few bits. I sat down on any chair I could find and waited.

So tonight (30th) we fly to Sydney, at 11.15pm local time, so that's about six hours from now. We are due to land in Sydney on Tuesday May 2nd at 7.30am. Monday May 1st will not exist for us. I had been looking forward to having a blank entry in my diary for that day, which would have been the first in thirteen years, but I no longer own a diary! We have all just been out for a tasty steak, the last one that H and I will have in South America. We had a kilo and a half of meat between the four of us and it didn't disappoint.

Anyway, this whole Australia thing has been in the pipeline since November 2003 and the time has nearly come for us to fufill our dream of moving there (and for us to both have been around the world). After an fantastic trip around South America H and I are both very excited aout moving to Sydney. It will be nice being able to settle down in one place for a bit, and to be honest, I am pretty knackered now.