13TH - 21ST FEBRUARY

After a quick stopover in Puerto Montt we were in the air again and before long were approaching Santiago. There was a fairly good view of the high Andes to the East of the city, but the layer of smog which Santiago is famous for was very much in evidence. It was almost like descending into a cloud, only a very brown and dirty one. There are an awful lot of cars in the City and apparently the mountains stop any of the fumes escaping, resulting in really bad smog. The landing was smooth, as was the taxi ride to our hostel. First impressions were that Santiago is a pretty hectic city, particularly after the serenity of the Torres and Puerto Natales. The hostel was pretty nice though, in a lovely old huge building with lots of courtyards and a swimming pool out back. We were given a big airy room near the back of the hostel, but were told that we’d have to move after two days for some reason. Not the end of the world

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After settling in we headed off out to the local Best Western Hotel. Now you may think this was a strange thing to do, but in fact it was owned by some guy from India, and apparently had a fantastic Indian restaurant attached to it. We just couldn’t resist!! And what a fantastic curry it was too - really authentic food - Hel was very pleased with her veggie something or other, and my conger eel madras was just divine!! We washed it down with some delicious Chilean wine and headed back to the hostel for a chill and a fairly early night.

We were awoken fairly early the next day and discovered the disadvantage of the room that we had - it was right next to the kitchen and prone to early morning noise. Still, we only had one more night there and today was arrival of Phil day, so it was likely to be a late night anyway. We had a nice morning chilling around the hostel and checking the