Goodbye Chile.

The big girl doll floating by on a boat.

'No mullet por favor!'

A bit of a change for us both at the beach.

A good luck sip of home brewed cherry liquour before some fishing.

Alfredo fishing. Better luck next time.

We're going to miss the infinity pool at the house a lot. What an amazing view.

Our time in Santiago and Chile is now at an end. We're off on a short (only 7 hours!) bus ride over the Andes to Mendoza tonight at 8.

To be honest, we've had a very quiet week in Santiago. Hard to believe but it's very nice to have a bit of time to completely relax (relax from the burden of travelling I hear you say!?) in one place for a while. We've had long days by the pool watching the building work and a few jaunts into town to see a few things and get a few bits and bobs.

We were lucky enough to catch the big giant girl doll who walks on a crane come through on our first day back. It was a pretty impressive sight seeing this huge doll walking through the park before gliding by on a boat and the atmosphere was like a music festival. Lots of cheering and such like when she was going past. Apparently 1million people went to see her over the 3 days of her visit.

We've been quite lucky so far in terms of not getting our bits stolen, but our closest shave by far came when walking back from seeing the doll. We were walking in a big crowd when Kat suddenly heared a ripping sound, instantly looking down at her bag she saw that a 30cm ish hole had been cut into the back. Quick as anything she grabbed her bag and immediately walked out of the crowd to a quieter area. Both our hearts were racing at this point, petrified that the camera, with ALL our photos was gone. Thankfully, no doubt due to the quick reactions of Kat, everything was still there. I didn't hear the initial cut at all and I'm sure that had Kat not been so quick everything would have been gone. For the remainder of the journey home I carried the camera tightly in my hand and the first we thing we did when we got back was put all the photos on to a DVD. We don't want to go through that feeling again! Losing wallets with cards and cash we could deal with but losing all our photos from the trip would have been truly devastating.

I forgot to mention how the trip to the seaside with Kat's friend went. Of course, no surprises really, it was very very nice. Lots of fantastic food on the asado (bbq) and plenty of sun too. We also enjoyed a bit of fishing with Alfredo and his new rod, ahem. Although we came close to catching what felt and sounded like a huge fish, the line snapped right at the end. Next time Alfredo!

I had a haircut in Santiago, thankfully she didn't give me a mullet or a rat's tail as seems to be the fashion for the young latino lads. They look so bad! Kat was busy giving instructions throughout and I think she mentioned 'Classic English Schoolboy' once too. Well it worked, and I had a shampoo rinse at the end to boot. Wan't used to that.

Also in the news. Kat's been offered an interview for a place on a PGCE course of her first chouce when she returns. Very chuffed indeed.

We just watched Wales lose to England in the rugby too. Bit funny watching Rugby with Spanish commentary. We (Wales!) could have won in the end! Ah well, could have, should have. Atleast Liverpool won.

So that's it for now I think. We'll be sad to leave Chile, we've really had a great time and we'll certainly miss the home comforts and generous company of Hubert and Agathe. Merci beacoup!

Back to Argentina tonight then we should be in Bolivia towards the end of newxt week if all goes to plan. It's the long road back to Rio now although I cannot wait for some of the things we'll see along the way. Till next time!