Yesterday a group of us from the hostel jumped on a train to meet up Jesus who was to be our tour guide for our day of rock climbing. After a 45min train journey we jumped in a taxi for the final 20min drive to the hills. By the time we jammed 5 of us in and the driver the poor Toyota Echo could barely move. As I was the biggest I was in the front which sounds great but the Echo had some fairly obvious signs of a recent smash (no front bar and severe panel dama...

Saturday I set out for a day trip to Valparaiso, a coastal town about an hour and a half from Santiago, with Sean and Juliana (from the UK) and Antonio (Mexican). It was a nice town, a lot dirtier than Santiago but in a beautiful location. This is where many internationals go to study Spanish. The town is flanked by very steep hills as you can see so they have elevators or àscensores` to get up to the towns that surround it, there a tiny shops and schools in ...

So its almost been a week now and it has been amazing. Santiago is an amazing city, the people are friendly, its pretty clean and the back drop of the Andes is awesome, see photos. I arrived at the hostel and as per usual met a bunch of Aussies. I am staying in a small funky little part of town similar to St Kilda with its little bars and clubs, markets and restaurants. Its a great hostel and eveyone is super friendly. Every night has begun the same with a group ...

So Ive made it to Chile....and had an awesome shower! After a few small delays in getting into Sydney I boarded my LAN flight to Santiago via Auckland, and in a pretty packed plane ended up with 4 seats to myself. I was able to stretch out fully the whole way from Auckland to Santiago, 10hrs of relaxation. Found my airport transfer straight away and headed for downtown Santiago...so many packs of stray dogs, im now glad the travel doctor treated me like a pin...