Day 14 - 18 hours in Chillan Tur-Bus seems to be a good outfit and we have had no problems with getting anywhere as yet. So after checking out of the great place that had been home for 2 days it was down to the bus station for 9am and our bus south. Today was the test run the new flasks and the hope of saving money by not having to buy coffee all day? Our journey would take about 7 hours mainly down the Pan-American Highway with occasional glimpses of the snow co...

Day 12 in Chile - The multicoloured madness of Valparaiso on the coast and back to just the 2 of us having to make our own decisions again, aaaah! It felt weird to finally be moving on again with only the two of us, when you spend over 5 weeks with people, especially mum and Ian it felt so strange not having them there with us and having to make our own decisions, plan routes and book accommodation/trips was bizarre, bring back our tour leader Bilynda!!! It was g...

Day 32 and 33 - The final full day of our Kumuka 'Southern Explorer' trip and big night out in Santiago! Kumuka group, thank you, WE WILL M ISS YOU!! Nearing the city, the vastness of Santiago really hits you, it was huge and as we drove by taxi to our hotel, the white Victorian / Georgian style buildings and history reminded us of London, again we could quite easily have been back at home right now! After some sleep we wandered to find food. The Zocalo was beaut...

Day 29 - 31 - The 18 hour night bus (eeek!) across the driest place on earth to La Serena on the coast! The eve of day 29 we got on the dreaded 18 hour night bus to La Serena on the coast. Unfortunately that meant we didn't see much of Chile but under the moonlight all I could vaguely see was harsh mountain and desert landscape all around. At about 3am we finally had passed through the driest place in the world and were flying down the coast. Several stops were m...

Destination 18 - CHILE! Days 27-29 of our Kumuka trip cont'd - Crossing the remote border into Chile and the town of San Pedro de Atacama On the other side of this remote border was our bus which would take us (very slowly!) down the valley, descending a mere 2500 metres to the border town of San Pedro de Atacama. Already the stark contrast of Chile compared to its poorer neighbours of Bolivia and Peru was apparent, the bus was posh and there were roads with yell...