Chile

Throughout my travels across Asia and Europe I have done everything in my power to avoid taking 24+ hour bus journeys. The thought of sitting on a bus for a full day coupled with some of the horror stories I've heard from fellow travelers had me fearing for the worst. Unfortunately San Pedro de Atacama is 1000 miles north of Santiago and the airlines know they can change whatever they want. However looking I have to say it really wasn't that bad. We stocked up on munchies beforehand, had plenty of time to catch up on sleep and each other for company. We were also extremely lucky to be in Chile where the roads are straight and smooth and the buses are well maintained!

We arrived in Santiago the next afternoon and checked into a hostel in the center of town. After the long bus ride and living off of salami, bread and snickers bars we were all eager for a good meal. We wandered down a tree lined boulevard and stumbled upon a great little restaurant for a menu del dia. I had an awesome chicken stuffed with cheese and ham and finished it off with some excellent rasberry ice cream. I spent the next couple of days wondering around the city and can say that Santiago is the first city I've been to in South America that has a european feel to it. It sits at the base of the Andes with wide pedestrian roads for strolling and has some trendy neighborhoods with great bars and restaurants. However with that being said it was obvious the city has seen better times. The pollution is so bad at times it was hard to see the mountains, everything is expensive and I can't say there is a ton of stuff to do. The girls left for Australia on Monday and after three days we decided it was time to head to Vina del Mar to soak up the sun for a couple of days.

I've always thought the water off the coast of San Francisco was freezing but the Chilean water really takes your breath away. We bet Niall $10 US to stay in for 5 minutes and had a secondary bet to see who would have to rescue him. Luckily he was able to make it our before losing circulation to his legs and saved Robin and myself from some serious shrinkage. Outside of relaxing on the beach and getting in an awesome run we also stumbled into a casino where we managed to clean house. I managed to make enough money to pay for my time in Chile and buy the table of a couple of rounds of drinks. At one point Robin and I were having a rough go at it and made a couple of profane comments to the dealer at which point he informed us he spent three years in the states and spoke english. Opps!!! Luckily from there we got really hot and we strolled out of the casino at sun rise smoking cubans feeling like high rollers. After three days of sitting on the beach we all decided it was finally time to head to Argentina. After one and a half months I couldn't be more excited to finally bite into some juicy red meat!!!