After waking up at 3.45am we realised our body clocks had still not adjusted to the new time. We couldn´t get back to sleep so we did a bit of planning and, after breakfast, headed out into Santiago. Our expectations were low, most people we´ve met describe variously as (this is verbatim) ´a hovel´, ´the biggest dive in South America´, and perhaps most poetically, ´a shithole´. Well we´ve found it to be none of the above, and we´ve had a great day!

We started by headed onto the Metro (clean, quick and you can get a mobile signal - are you reading this London transport?) where we did a bit of a dry run for catching our bus to Valparaiso tomorrow. It all seemed fairly easy to negotiate and our pidgeon (more like small pathetic sparrow to be fair) Spanish got us a room booked for tomorrow, a phone card, bus info, and copious bottles of water )even the non-fizzy stuff...) so we´re quite chuffed...We then headed into the hub of the City - Plaza de Armes. It is basically a big square filled with all manner of artists, some doing caricatures, some landscapes, one even painted little scenes, on glass, with his fingers. Being a sucker for this kind of stuff we bought a glass thingy for about 90p. By the time we bought he had a crowd of 10-15 people watching but with no-one buying until I stepped forward in my now magpie (slightly better than a sparrow) Spanish and set the ball rolling. He made a further 5 or 6 sales, I should have asked for commission...! The whole area reminded me a little of parts of Paris, quite Bohemian with some great architechture as a backdrop. Whilst walking through the square we noticed a few people dressed up in what looked like indiginous clothes (Jen remarked how some of the women looked a little like pantomime dames...!) so we followed only to find ourselves at the start of a prossession for (my translation here...) Indiginous Culture Festival. Various ´tribes´then processed to loud pan-pipes, brass bands and drums. The music and general all round hubbub was really catchy and we found ourselves watching the wonderfully adorned groups for an hour as they danced and played their way through the city. It was fantastic, a real chance finding but one of the best things about travelling, you always chance upon little bits of cultures you have no experience of and invariably it is a real highlight - this was!

On our way back through the square, looking for some lunch, a chap come up and was incredibly friendly, all handshakes and nods, and gave us a load of tips on where to go in Chile, what to do, where to stay et al...couldn´t be for free we thought and indeed it wasn´t as at the end he asked for some money for ´children´s plays´. Being the hardened travellers we clearly are by now we feigned ´no cash´ and then watched him watch us for 10 minutes or so before we thought it´d be safe to head into a shop for lunch. For lunch we had ´empanada´, which is basically a Cornish Pastie with hard boiled egg and an olive in, it was great, and all for 50p (with a can of Pepsi). Everyone we´ve met has also told us how expensive Chile is, and granted, nice accomodation isn´t cheap but the food, internet and transport is very affordable...

We sat in the plaza having lunch and decided to go to Cerro San Christobal which is about 850m high and looks over Santiago. It was a bit of a walk (couple of kms and hey it´s so hot here I got a little sunburnt today...) but was really worth it. We chanced upon another Cerro (hill) en route (who´s name escapes me for now) which was like a real oasis in the middle of all the traffic (both pedestrian and vehicular). There was a lift you could take to the top, and from there is was a nice stroll around and down, passing couples taking a siesta, wonderful terraced gardens and all manner of flora.

After another km or so after passing through some pretty dodgy looking areas (walking a little quicker, head down) we arrived at the base of the furnicular railway which they rather wonderfully titled the ´FUNicular´which was maybe stretching it a little but it was great fun... At the top of the hill, where Pope John Paul II made an address in 1984, is a 36m statue of the Virgin Mary, and whilst not as visually impressive as I am sure Christ´s statue in Rio will prove it was still nice enough. The views of the city were amazing, although you couldn´t see some of the Andean peaks less than 30 kms away thanks to the smog (which apparently wasn´t too bad today - hate to see it on a bad day...) After the ´fun´, came the cable car across the whole of the park which was in the world scariest cars, which didn´t seem to have any locking mechanism at all, although I stress we didn´t try to open the doors whilst in full flow... The round trip lasted an hour or so and, absolutely thrilled at the fantastic exploration of the city we´d had, headed back to the hotel and for a little siesta. We were greeted at the front door by the manager who we believe to be in some way related to Basillette, he´s camper than a pack of scouts at jamboree but a nice chap who speaks excellent English and he helped us out with a few questions on our route.

So, tomorrow we´re off to Valparaiso, and more (hopefully) FUN-iculars as it´s basically built on two levels. From here a plan has formed which takes us through Chillan (best market in Chile apparently), Pucon (horse trekking in the Andes), Valdivia (University town - meant to be delightful) and a couple of other places before heading over to Argentina - Bariloche to be precise. From there we´re heading south and around to Beunos Aires with what looks like a whole host of 20 hour bus rides currently...we´re going to spend some time looking for cheap flights, we maybe didn´t realise just how big this place is (for the record, Chile is only 200 km wide but over 4,000 km ´long...)