Pirates of the good ship Team Adventure

After an overnight stopover in Auckland, where I was savaged by bedbugs (my first and only experience of them in my year away) my first stop in South America was Santiago, the Capital of Chile. I was a little apprehensive about arriving in South America on my own. One of the cabin crew on my flight really reassured me by telling me not to leave my hostel on my own, EVER! Great, exactly what I wanted to hear.

I flew out of Auckland at 1pm on Sunday and arrived in Chile (after a 12hr flight), before I left New Zealand, at 12pm Sunday. After queuing for two hours to clear customs, I was finally ready to venture out. What I had already noticed was the sheer volume of impressive facial hair, the moustache was very much favoured here.

My hostel was in a lovely part of the city called Bellavista, it was kinda like the St Kilda of Santiago, minus the prostitutes, or maybe the prostitutes here were just more subtle! There were lots of little cafes and markets and this was the first place I realised the difficulty involved in getting still water- aqua sin gas por favor, my Spanish was coming along a treat.

I didn't do very much on my first 2 days there, it was a mixture of jet lag and the words of caution from the helpful cabin crew.

By the third day I was very ready to head out and see what the place had to offer. And you know what? Santiago was NOT a scary place at all! I walked through the city, went to a museum, realised I didn't speak Spanish so the point of museums was lost on me and decided not to bother in future. Did a bit of shopping, had a nice lunch and got back to my hostel again without getting sold into white slavery, a successful day I thought! So I did very much of the same for the next few days.




So after 6 days in Santiago it was time to head on to Buenos Aires.

to be continued....

She's the one at the slot machine

During my previous visit to Sydney I managed to blind myself so saw everything through one squinty eye, this time I had two working eyes, hooray. I know there are plenty of photos of Sydney on the blog, but here are a few more.....for luck

Unfortunately my Sydney visit was cut short, damn Qantas. When I phoned to confirm my flights to South America the following week, they told me I was on a standby list, not to worry though they said, they could get me on a flight from Melbourne to Chile in 3 days time! So my little time left in Australia was now cut in half, I found this all very inconvenient!

Next morning I got the first flight back to Melbourne. It was Melbourne Cup Day and I must have been the only person in the city heading away from the racetrack. Even though I didn't make it to Cup Day, I did fit in a visit to Crown Oaks Day with my cousin Martin and his girlfriend Epp, I got to wear a hat! They taught me everything I need to know about betting, for which I will be forever grateful!

Here's Martin doing his thing.

On my last day in Melbourne I realised I had no pictures of the place. I fixed that though and here are some of the best sights. Flinders Street Station

Hula hooping man on Swanston Street
Tram on Bourke Street, not a ye oldie one unfortunately
Federation Square, now I thought this was pretty ugly but others seemed to like it....

I spent my very last night in Melbourne with my lovely work friends. After a very nice meal and a few cocktails it was time to say my final goodbyes to them. That's the only downside of travelling, all the goodbyes that are necessary.

So that was that, I said goodbye to Australia, the home of scooners, pots, aww yeahhhhs, Bondi Rescue, Rove and Tori.

Next stop Chile.