Chile

After not feeling too well I am now feeling much better after I have had a few tablets. On Monday Jess and I trailed the city, walked miles, got beeped and whistled at no end of times, spoke the worst Spanish, we we found what we wanted!....a beautiful swimming pool on the top of a mountain in the middle of Santiago. We thought we`d just follow the hill...but the hill was about 2 miles wide! Anyway, we got a small mini bus to the top of the hill and spent the afternoon by the pool reading our books. It was wonderful! Yesterday I went with Laura around the national museum and to the cathedral where there was a service. People confessing, and we saw one of the priests open the gold safe...it was kind of weird and I wanted to get out pretty quick. We met Kat and Jess had some lunch and went to the museum of modern art. It was cool, I especially enjoyed the photography exhibition. It was photos of Kabul, Afganistan, really interesting....it`s made me want to be a photographer even more! Last night we went for a lovely meal, we managed to get Anthony the T total guy to have a drink....he`s so funny! I had a cocktail...but just the one this time.
Woke up this morning, had breakfast and sorted my stuff out. Put my stuff in the luggage room and said goodbye as all the people I met piled into mini buses. I felt really sad as I`ve become good friends with Jess in particular, so it was a tearful moment. I walked down the street quicker than their minibus! Went to the postoffice and then decided to go to the cinema. Was kind of strange going to the cinema in Santiago on my own, but it was in English and I have time to kill before my flight tonight....so here I am spending more money, killing more time telling you guys what I`ve been up to. Only a few hours now until I make my way to the airport for my flight to Auckland. Quite crazy as I fly at 11pm, takes 13 hours, but I don`t get there until Friday morning! So, enjoy 7th December as much as you can as I don`t have one this year! Stay well, I`ll be back again from New Zealand. Chow for now!

Well, on Friday morning I was up at 6am, we went to the tour office where we had a beautiful breakfast of dippy eggs...it was like being a child again, I told everyone that they should have soldiers. So, there we all were with earl grey tea, eggs, soldiers and fresh yoghurt, building up our bodies for the walk up the volcano. Only for the man to come back with the weather report and say it was too dangerous as it was hailing up at the top of the volcano. So, off we went back to bed. I didn´t do much with my day, stayed in bed for a while,it was cold and wet so just hung around and chilled out in the hostel. So, Saturday we woke up to beautiful sunshine, definitely the day to climb the volcano....so back to the tour office, dippy eggs again! This time we got fully equipt with snow boots, trousers, jackets, helmets and a nice pack up. We had special sunglasses, big mittens and an ice pic! So off we went, I was sitting in the van driving to the bottom of Villarica volcano wondering what the hell I was doing...but just thought, this has got to be done! So, we get to the bottom, heavy rucksacks with helmets, 2 litres of water, ice shoes the lot...realy quite heavy. We started our climb. The crater looked so close, but it was so far! There was 200 people climbing with lots of guides, 18 in our particular group with black and orange jackets! We started walking and I could barely breath, just wondering how I was going to make it. It was a steep gradient and really hard to walk on the snow, but we were taught how to use our pic axe should we fall. 5 hours later atfer several stops, realy sore ankles and a sore groin I reached the crater. It was so hot, I had walked all the way up in just my t-shirt as the sun was so strong. It was quite amazing to see all the sulpher coming out and small bits of lava creeping out....in all honesty though, not sure the 5 hours of agony was worth it! The way wack down was far easier, in our rucksacks we had a bum strap, we clipped it around our bum and away we went...it was pretty scary at first as it was a very steep slope, but we just as Aimee would say ´greased our arses and slid!´ It was a lot of fun, but there was walking in between when the slope wasn´t quite steep enough to slide...funny how I didn`t notice those bits on the way up!! My groin was killing me and I just wanted to get to the bottom so much, but it still took nearly 2 hours to get back down. Finally we made it, I could barely walk and my ankles were all red and swallen...but I am really proud that I did it.
The worst thing was having to spend the night on a most uncomfortable nightbus, I could hardly sleep, my body was in bits. We arrived in Santiago at 7:30am, my final South American destination. I had an hour rest and then went out to have a look around the city. The main square is lovely and has a great big Christmas tree, first time I`ve really thought about Christmas. We took a walk around, went to a museum, the museum of pre columbian art, it was pretty cool. I then had a bit of drama with a cash machine which decided not to give me any money, but then made myself feel better having a mint milkshake...lovely!
With all the changes in weather I´m realy not feeling well, we went out for a fantastic meal last night, but then I had to go to bed as I am suffering. Have bad chest and head cold, but I`ve been to the pharmacy this morning and have lots of things to make me better. Feeling better already! Today my tour has ended, but I am here until Wednesday and so are the other people who are continuing the tour so I will be spending some more time with them until it´s time to go. Just going to explore the city a little more today and tomorrow. I need to work out what I´m going to do when I get to New Zealand aswell. That´s all for now....

We arrived in Puerto Varas after a 6 hour bus ride, Jess and I have been named the Swedish blondes...it`s great. We put our bags in a taxi from the bus station while everyone else walked!...GAP paid of course!
We went out for dinner and then back to our dive of a hostel. It was like having a shower under a waterfall, cold and very cave like, it was dark in there!...I was shivering so much. Yesterday we went on a trip to the island of Chiloe, a bit further south in Chile. We went to a gorgeous beach place with noone around and went out on a boat to see penguins, they were so cute waddling around and falling into the water. It`s been pretty cold here, but the sun was shining. It was so cool to see penguins and otters in their natural habitat. We had freshly caught fish for lunch, seabass and hake...it was lovely. Considering that the penguins were a 3 hour drive away on a different island Puerto Varas is the disappointment of my trip so far. It has a beautiful lake and a volcano to the back of it, a great view. But little else to do and the worst accommodation so far. The best thing about the accommodation was the big feather duvets!
We then took another 7 hour bus journey and arrived in Pucon. The sun was shining and it was rather warm carrying our bags up the street. We got to the hostel, and it`s really cute. It has a real homely feel to it, and big feather duvets again! We went to book excursions last night and I got wound up with the whole group thing again, it took so long! I didn`t end up getting my dinner until 10:45pm...wasn`t impressed. Not feeling great at the moment, had a sore throat and feeling a little runned down...must be all the hard work I`m doing!! Booked on to go up the active volcano tomorrow, they give you all the snow shoes and stuff, so it will be challenging, but evry exciting! Supposed to be going rafting this afternoon, but I really can`t make up my mind if I want to do it. It`s pretty cold here today, my hands are like ice typing at the moment. Not sure getting cold and wet is going to do much for my sore throat. Anyway, I`ll go now and make up my mind....laters