It was dark when we got here. Not necessarily the best thing in a new city, a new country. But for some reason Santiago had a Christmas sort of feel to it and seemed very welcoming. It was misty, cold and they have traffic lights that look like they've been lifted straight out of England. They also have a BT tower of their own. It almost felt like coming home except for all of the Spanish being spoken and, of course, they drive on the wrong side of the road.

It took a little while to find the Hostel as it wasn't marked in any obvious way but once inside it was pretty good. The beds were comfy and warm and the kitchen looked pretty good too. So we were inspired to wander down to the nearest supermarket and find something we could make for supper. That's when we made an amazing discovery. Cheese! Real cheese, not that rubbery / yucky stuff. Of course, we made sandwiches, how could we not?

Since then we haven't done that much. Relaxation was required and had in abundance. We also did a little bit of shopping for a couple of t-shirts, sweatshirts and some antibiotics. We managed to post off some souvenirs from Peru, climbed a hill and that's about it from a touristy point of view.

We've taken full advantage of the supermarket and kitchen facilities to cook whatever we wanted instead of visiting restaurants. We've also seen Kill Bill Vol 2 way too many times now. Someone here has a dodgy copy of it on Video CD and it seems to get played 2 or 3 times a day. That and Starsky and Hutch. They're both getting a bit annoying. Speaking of annoying, we were woken last night by a bunch of noisy northeners at 4am. They've been talking a lot (and loudly) about how they've all nearly had bags snatched etc. I can't help thinking though that they do sort of draw attention to themselves and so maybe it's not surprising.

We had been thinking about spending a few days in Valparaiso before flying further south but because I've been fighting off a bit of a cold we didn't. We did decide though to have a quick day trip there today since it's only two hours away. When I say quick, it turned out to to be very quick. We were back by 1pm! Valparaiso smelled of dog urine, was foggy, cold and it was Sunday so it was very quiet. It's likely that when it's sunny it's a lot nicer but we just thought of cheese and headed back to Santiago.

So, that's about it for now. Except that we've just overheard one of the northeners discussing their itinerary. It sounds very similar to ours, lucky us.