We drive about an hour to get to the border crossing. We can not believe the difference in the roads in such a short distance. Tarmac, road signs, barriers!
The bus drops us off at San Pedro. This is a small tourist town, where a lot of the trips go from to the salt plains and geysers, from the Chilean side.
It's a dusty town but quite nice. We decide to treat ourselves to a decent hotel for the night, we think we deserve it after the last couple of nights! (Oh , by the way, we didn't go back to Uyuni to give Andrea a piece of our mind, but I did write a letter and sent it back with Kate and Rose, they too, gave her piece of their mind, apparently!)
We just have a lazy couple of days, then get the bus to La Serena,(16 hours) a coastal town. We arrive on the Sunday 1st April and there is nothing open, not even a cafe! It's not a bad town, but really isn't that much going on.
We find a nice hostel and then Matt starts to feel ill (again). We end up having to spend 3 nights here. The weather has been foggy everyday. I do a lot of reading while Matt is in his sick bed! We go to catch our bus that we book tickets for a couple of days earlier to find out, we are a day to early!!
As Matt is better, we decide to go to an observatory tonight as the weather has cleared. We have a good night, our guide is very funny and makes stargazing really interesting, especially as they are all back-to-front to us!!
Move on to the capital Santiago. We are sure Broseley would fit into one of it's many parks quite easily!
We have got a really nice hostel near the centre, which have fab breakfast. We have been told it is quite a safe city, other than the pick-pocketers down at the market and obviously not to go into the backstreet's after dark.
It is Easter weekend, so a lot of the museums are closed! We do all the usual things you have to do when your a tourist, walking up the hill to the San Cristabel. You know the one, the statue with the out-stretched arms, that overlook every city in South America!
Our flight out of Chile is on the 14 April, we realise we have really too many day's in the city, so do a bit of homework and decide to go to the country for the last couple of days. We hop on the metro, which we were very impressed with, and get on a bus to San Alfonso. We have booked into a very nice hostel (expensive!) with the worst breakfast to date! (bread roll and jam!!) We complain but they say that is all you get! (Whatever happened to the customer is always right?)
The village consists of a couple of very small shops and two places to eat, one of which is where we are staying. I have to say their food is very good here, when you are paying restaurant prices! The only other thing that happens here is the picking of walnuts, (it's harvest time) and horse riding!
We decide to do the latter, much to my surprise, as Matt as a slight fear of them!
We get on our horses and start our very steep ride up a mountain side, with a very steep drop on the left hand side, to say I am shitting myself is an under-statement. It is worth it for the view that we get when we get to the plateau. Okay, what goes up, must come down! An even stepper, zig-zag track! Netty is not a happy bunny! But we arrive back safe, if not a little shaky and dusty!
We decide to have an extra night here, as we really can't face another night in the city, but we decide to move hostels. There is another one across the road. It's just a house that let a room or 2, we are the only one's there though. Nice friendly lady, says we can use the kitchen and fridge. The kitchen is filthy! Our room is actually so bad, it is good! Glass missing in the bathroom and we have a thunderstorm and rain is leaking into our room in several different places! (Makes good reading for the blog, we think!).
We go for a walk up the hillside and get followed by an German Shepherd, (dog, that is), who will not leave us, he was very friendly, so we didn't mind, two and a half hours later we take him home!
Back to Santiago to get the plane to New Zealand!
