Mother's Day in Santiago

Another gorgeous day - and probably the warmest so far.

Today is Mother's Day in Chile, so the streets were pretty quiet in the morning. We went to a shopping mall to pay for the flight tickets to the North of Chile that Ian had booked on the phone - only one slight misunderstanding - he was travelling with Gina instead of Tina - not bad eh! Highlight of the mall was a great band playing Mexican music at the supermarket checkouts!

Took the underground to the Centre - really efficient and clean - handles a million passengers a day and only costs 50p a ride. Stumbled on a Chinese Terracotta army exhibition. Apparently there are some original soldiers in the exhibition but we couldn't quite figure out which ones despite our Spanish lessons.

Took this picture from one of the hills in town. In parts a really attractive city but pretty rough around the ages. Had lunch in the main square and bumped into our friend Nic from the school in Mendoza. Being a poor student he took advantage of our offer of free beer and bread rolls!

Final stop was a walk to the funicular railway which took us to the top of the largest hill in the city where the Virgin Mary looks down on the sinful city below. Ian's route to the Park entrance much to be desired! Just managed to get to the top before the sunset, took this picture and pretty much came straight back down again. Dinner was another Chilean speciality - hot dog with tomatoes, avocado, mayonnaise and chilli sauce!

Now trying to book our trip across the Atacama Desert into Bolivia - thank goodness for WFI!

Heading for a couple of towns on the Pacific Ocean tomorrow with the couple that took us out Saturday night.