Santiago

We had a busy couple of days as we stopped in Santiago on the way to New Zealand. Due to the delay in stopping en route at Sao Paolo, we arrived late in the evening so got a taxi to the hostel. We told the driver our Spanish joke about the duck and the bar (thanks Jimmy!!) and ended up getting a Spanish lesson from the driver to assist us. Althougth I don't think I'll have much use for 'traffic lights' or 'motorway' whilst walking around the city!!!

We did a mini tour of the city on our first day including Palacio de la Moneda, with its two courtyards - Plaza de la Constitution and Plaza de la Liberatad, Cerro Santa Lucia (formally a giant dirt mould until they made it into a lookout point of the city), the main square (Plaza de Armas), the Cathedral, Mercado Central (a giant fish market) and to Pio Nono to see the statue of the Virgin Mary on the top of the hill.

The next day we did a vineyards tour - they took us to see Vina Aquitania and Vina Undurraga. We were taken around the fields and shown how they make their wine. We also got to taste some as well (the best part of the day!)

The final day we flew to Auckland and lost the 8th December due to crossing the date line!