Sunday 16 September - we found out that breakfasts in Chile are very simple affairs, toast, coffee and cake but when you are only paying $15 per person per night you can't expect full English. After breakfast we ask the Hostel Manager about keeping the bike safe somewhere and we tell him about our trip. He advises us to be extremely careful because it could be dangerous travelling alone. This reminds us of a conversation we had with an Australian girl on our flight to Santiago. She had travelled extensively through Peru, Bolivia, Ecuador and Central America and she said "jeez you Kiwis must be mad to do it alone on a motorbike" but we replied " no just adventurous".

With map in hand we decide to hit the streets of Santiago and we easily find the funicular railway up to the Concepcion, a statue of the Virgin Mary, with the views from here you get a feel for the actual size of the city of Santiago and its six million inhabitants. The views stretch right across to the snow-capped Andes mountains. We stayed there for a couple of hours just soaking up the Sunday morning atmosphere and enjoyed our first Chilean empenadas which are similar a Cornish pastie but contain mince meat, onions, boiled egg and olives.

We were feeling really confident about our navigation skills by now so we decided to try the Metro to get oursevles to a restaurant that our friends John and Alison had suggested that we visited. Just three stops on the red line from where we were and then a few blocks to the Restaurante Giratorio on Ave 11 Septembre. This is a revolving restaurant, on the top of a tower, with fantistic 360 degree views of the city of Santiago and the Andes mountains. We enjoyed a typical three course Chilean meal including a Pisco Sour aperitif, coupled with a bottle of Chilean Merlot this made for a very pleasant time. Gill went to the toilet and when she came back she swore I had moved tables but soon realised the nature of the restaurant and put her confusion down to the libations.

After the meal and feeling quietly confident about our communication skills I say to the waiter "Signor, la cuenta por favor" he brings the bill and rattles off about three sentences of Spanish which leaves me with egg on my face and we bid him farewell with the phrase "sweet mate, no worries, see ya".

After a pleasant walk through the streets we catch the Metro again back to our hostel and that was a successful end to our first day in Santiago.

Monday 17 September - Although our accommodation is cheap, unfortunately the traffic is quite bad outside along with dogs barking, and combined with jet lag, it took us a while to get to sleep with Neil resorting to using the earplugs we use on the bike. We oversleep and miss breakfast and the whole of the morning. We don't get up until 2.00pm!! We decide we need to find out about the bike and when we can pick it up. We try, with the help of the Reception Staff at the hostel, to phone the number given to us by our shipping agent but no reply. We find another number in the Yellow Pages but again, NO REPLY! Chile is about to go into a two day celebration of Independence so we have to find out today when we can get the bike. We keep ringing but at 4.00pm we decide to bite the bullet and take a taxi to the airport to see what we have to do, and when, to get the bike. The hostel orders a taxi for us. Ten minutes later a lady taxi driver arrives and introduces herself as Celia. On our way to the airport we make conversation with her in our broken Spanish and she does her best to reply in her broken English. We tell her about our trip and where we are planning to travel and we get the feeling she has some concerns.

We arrive at the airport cargo area and we go into the LAN Cargo office where we told in half Spanish/half English we are told that we cannot get the bike until Thursday as the next two days are a public holiday but we will have to pay storage but only "un poquito" (a little - we hope!) The young man we speak to says we should come back on Thursday at 8.30am so there was nothing else we could do but go back to Santiago. On the way back Celia talks further about us travelling alone through Peru, Bolivia and Central America and communicates the internal sign language for having a new breathing hole installed just under one's chin, we think she is joking and laugh but soon realise she is serious. Apparently group travel is the way to go through these parts, especially by motorcycle, as there as some very poor and desperate people who may go to any lengths to relieve us of our mount. Celia drops us off in Santiago and we continue to do a little more exploring.

The next two days are festival time and on Wednesday 19th we see various aircraft of the Chilean Airforce performing a fly past at about 500ft over Santiago and the noise from F16 Tomcats is deafening. We make our way to the area where all the government buildings are and discover there is to be a parade of all the armed forces and a motor cavalcade, headed by the Chilean Presidenta, Michelle Bachelet. She drives by, stood up, in an open-top 60's Ford Galaxy and this seemed very reminiscent of JFK's similar, but unfortunate journey past the grassy knoll. We look up onto the roofs of the surrounding buildings and see security forces installed there. Everything passes by quite smoothly and after seeing platoons of formally dressed soldiers etc we decide to leave and find something to eat. Unfortunately, the only place we find open at this time, remembering everyone is on holiday, is the BurgerKing!! So with rumbling stomachs we admit defeat and eat there. After about 10 minutes of being there we see six people come in in identical sports coats and discover they are members of the Taranaki Seniors Hockey Team from New Zealand. We stop and chat for a few minutes and find they are in Santiago for a couple of days before flying to Argentina for a few hockey matches. We wish them well and retreat back to the hostel.

That night we think long and hard about what to do about our plans. We weigh up the why's and why not's and came to the conclusion that we had to abort the trip by bike but promise ourselves to return to South America at some point, probably on an organised tour because what we have seen of it so far is certainly beautiful. Maybe if only one person had expressed concerns we may have taken it with a pinch of salt but from three different people we feel it is a different story.

Thursday 20 September - we call Celia again to take us to the Cargo Area at the Airport to arrange transport for the bike back to New Zealand. We tell her of our decision to return home with the bike and she utters the words "Santa Maria". She also says, "my friends, you have made the right decision".

We go to the LAN Cargo office again and Celia stays with us. We explain to the people there what we want to do and they say first we have to go to Customs. So we get back into the car and go to Customs. They say we have to go to a building that houses all the Shipping Agents who then say we have to go to Customs first. All the while, Celia is voluntarily acting as interpretor for us. After EIGHT hours of being passed from pillar to post by people suffering from arse and elbow syndrome and Celia's remonstrations with them, we finally have freighting of the bike sorted. Celia dropped us of in Santiago where we arrange our own flights back to NZ. We pay Celia for all her time although she was reluctant to take the money. The nature of the Chilean people that we met was very generous and friendly and we found this very heart warming.

After a long day of beaurocracy we treat ourselves to a steak dinner and plenty of red wine!!

The next day we get a message from the Hostel receptionist to go to the Airport to see the LAN Cargo staff as there are problems with the paperwork. We try to ring the number they gave us but there is no answer. Then the hostel manager came through the reception and asked if we are ok, we told him the story and he rang LAN Cargo and the agent as staff there speak very little English. Eventually, later that day, everything is sorted out and we are promised that the bike will be on the same flight as us back to NZ. That evening Celia takes us to the airport and we give her a bottle of wine as a thank you and she surprises us with presents also. Neil receives a hollowed-out cow's horn, to be used as a drinking vessel, and Gill receives a toiletry set in a wooden box with a lovely message written on it. On our way into the airport we both think, "Oh no, now we have to face the fruit police in Auckland".