Wednesday 11th August - again!
We grabbed some tasty kebabs on our way to the airport . The queues there were minimal which was a good job as everybody departing Auckland must queue at one desk to pay the $25 departure tax. We were soon on the plane with LAN Chile and the journey seemed to fly past as everybody had their own interactive screen with 5 movies, games, music and information all available at the tap of a button - our best in-flight experience yet, even better than Cathay Pacific. Sue did manage an hour of sleep on the 12 hour, 6000 mile journey but Derek didn´t even bother trying - he played chess instead against the computer. On the plane we slowly noticed that we were scratching ourselves more and more - looked like the bed bugs were back for the first time since Malaysia!! We made our way through customs (noticing with amusement that US/Canadian citizens must pay to get a VISA into Chile as Chileans need a visa to go to their countries - what a right-on idea!!) As we were by now feeling knackered we were happy to be offered a nice-sounding city centre apartment/hotel which turned out to be a bargain . We jumped on the bus to town - 20 minutes later we´re in central Santiago when suddenly the traffic on the opposite side has come to a halt - the reason being some students are running around lettnig off smoke-bombs whilst police are chasing them. A sign of things to come, we hoped not! Jet lag had by now turned us both into a couple of zombies so we only managed to make it into town to buy some water, get some cash and have a Burger King before heading back to the apartment and staying awake till 7.30pm local time - we´d been awake 27 hours so it was lights out.

Thursday 12th August - Santiago
Our body clocks had us awake about 6.30am so we watched ´Sesame Street the Movíe´and ´Charlies Angels´ on the 50+ cable channels we had in our room. We availed of our surprise breakfast (included in the price) of toast, ham, cheese, yogurt and cakes. The morning was warm so Derek wore shorts for the first time since we left Sydney. We´d decided to head straight for the tourist office in town - unfortutely for us we took the wrong turn and spent an hour getting back to where we should have been only to find the information office in our guide book didn´t exist where it was supposed to! Instead there was one 3K further on so that where we went - we arrived tired and sweaty . The staff were helpful and soon had us booking a one'day skiing trip with lessons for next Tuesday. They also directed us to a travel agent further out of town for organising a whistle-stop 4-day tour of the area surrounding Santiago. One the way we saw a great little pub called the ´Phone Box´ which served up lunch for 2 pound a head including a beer. At the travel agent we booked and paid for a 3-night 4-day tour of Valparisso and Le Serena areas - the distances meant to do it in the time-frame we had, it was necessary to take an overnight bus. Anyway, we were pleased to have a trip outside Santiago sorted out. The long walk back into town took us through a city centre square where a very popular local hip-hop group were shaking the ground to it´s core. We needed a beer and the local cafe provided a huge 1 litre bottle for a pound. Sue had a cheese and tomato sarnie but Derek´s appetite was strongly affected so he stuck with beer. We were locked out of our room when we went back so had to go and pay for our 2-night´s downstairs before getting a good nigh´t´s sleep.