Hello South America

The Asian leg of my journey has finally drawn to an end and with it comes an epic journey home.. a 62 hour transit involving a bus, 3 trains and 3 planes. Had to feel sorry for the people who were unlucky enough to sit next to me as the first 5 hour train had a very uncomfortable 36c cabin temperature and no airconditioning, every passenger emerged soaking in sweat. I survived the journey and had a great couple of weeks back home catching up with family and mates, heading south for the weekend and getting to sleep in my own bed again, without living out of a bag!

My flight to Santiago in Chile involved a quick stopoff in Sydney and then a change of airlines to LAN in Auckland as Qantas were code sharing their flight, 24 hours later I landed in South America to begin my 6 month adventure from Patagonia up to Mexico. Santiago was nothing like I had anticipated (not that I really knew what to expect anyway), the city had a very modern feeling to it, not unlike our main cities back in Australia. An airport shuttle bus dropped me at my hostel which was actually a great option as it meant I was able to get some bearings of the city along the way while various passengers were dropped at their hostels.

Buggered from next to no sleep for the two nights prior I was ready to crash at my hostel until I found out they were running the weekly Friday night barbecue including unlimited wine / beer. The place was packed with guests and foreigners that had been studying at a language school down the road, next thing I knew we were exiting a club at sunrise with a vague recollection of necking bottles of Pisco Sour with some Aussie lads on the street at some point during the nights antics. When I did eventually manage to get some sleep, its was horribly interrupted by a very strange bloke in our dorm room who emitted disturbing grunting noise while he slept.

Santiago has an epic backdrop surrounded by the Andes mountain range, one of the best looking cities I have ever seen. In my 3 days hanging out, the majority of my exploration was spent either walking the half hour between my hostel and downtown or wandering the cites vast contrast between 19th century architecture and modern development including the tallest building in Latin America. In no way did this place feel unsafe, in fact I was quite chuffed to survive until my third day in South America without being mugged. As the countries Independence day was celebrated this week, most shops were closed due to the owners taking an opportunity to extend their public holidays a few days for a vacation. Needing to replace my jumper that was lost after lending to to one of the Aussies on Friday and breaking my only pants on the way over, I managed to locate a great street which was lined with second hand shops, full of brands most likely imported from America and the perfect place to stock up pre trek.

My plan for the rest of this trip is to basically plan as little as possible, or at least leave the planning until the last minute where I can be open to advice from other travellers and revelling in a greater sense of freedom, finding my way across this unfamiliar land. Unfortunately it has its pitfalls as I was stuck for the next 2 days trying to work out a feasible way to get down to Patagonia and trek the famous Torres Del Paine. Being winter a lot of the tours and accommodation options are not yet open, probably not for at least a month or so. Then there was the problem of travelling over 3,000km down to Patagonia, a bus company was offering a hop on / hop off service that covers most of the Chilean landscape with a north and south route, unfortunately the next departure date was not for 6 days. I bit the bullet, abandoning the opportunity to check out northern Chile and instead booked a flight down to Punta Areans in the far south.