Santiago

The 12 hour flight to Chile was suprisingly comfortable, there was a lot of room and nobody sitting next to me. Each seat had a tv with computer games so I played tetris for a few hours and went to sleep. In the morning we could see the sun coming up over the snow capped Andes, it was an amazing view.

Zoe met me at the airport and we went into Santiago to dump our stuff at the hostel. The hostel was really nice, it was an old colonial building in the middle of Santiago. The streets around the hostel were very colourful full of really small shops which seem to sell all sorts of things eg.second hand car seats! There are some lovely ornate buildings and also very crumbly buildings - everything is colourful but faded.
...Day1
We walked around the city went for lunch, (fried beef and avocado sandwich is now a strict part of my diet) Zoe took me up a fenicular railway to the top of a hill which had fantastic views of Santiago and the snow capped Andes in the background. We went for dinner near the hostel as I was tired ... Mexican enchiladas, very nice.
...Day2
We had a lovely breakfast in the hostel and got the bus out of Santiago to a vineyard called "Concho y Toro" (I think you can buy a bottle of it in Tesco)

home

 It was a huge vineyard and we had a guided tour in English and sampled some of the wine, very nice... must buy some bottles to bring home. The countryside was lovely, lots of green rolling hills. It took quite a while to get out of the city as the busses stop every 3 yards or drive at 150 mph. However they are very frequent, the metro system is also frequent and very clean. We went out in Santiago in the evening to a local hotspot, and had a very nice Italian meal.
...Day3
We got a bus to a place called San Jose, south of Santiago and then took a taxi to San Alfonso where there was a short trek that took you up to a magnificent waterfall, it took about an hour to walk each way and the views from the top were amazing (photos were taken) The small villages on the way up the mountains were really lovely with lots of little cafes and roadside vendors. It took quite a while to get back to Santiago as the busses were only going 130mph. We ate out in the local hotspot again and stayed out quite late drinking beer in a bar with some cool live guitar music. On Sunday Santiago was like a ghost town, everybody either recovering or in church? we got the bus back to Talca and the climate went from Medditeranean to Welsh in the 3 hours it took to complete the journey.