desiree's Journals

Argh!!! Right so yes as you can probably tell from my last entry I did not have enough time to even finish off the whole hting argh!! And now have fifteen minutes to do all of that!!! Ok so here we go:) So I left it off at the 31st of January when we left Mendoza. Basically we checked out the morning of the 31st from the hotel we were staying at in Mendoza called Hotel Galicia (Bit gloomy but was a good price and we had cable TV!!). Then we made our way to the bus station and got on our bus for our 7 hour ride through the Andes to Santiago de Chile!:) The ride was absolutely amazing:) The scenery was absolutely beautiful! Got some good pictures but will have to put them on later cause unfortunately still haven't found a place where I'm able to put my photos on using their computers sorry!! But yea was a great ride.. especially because I go to watch Cinderella story hehe:) I did get to see it but obviously the scenery was the best part:) Anyways so yes although the bus ride was beautiful it did not go that smoothly. Once we got the border our bus was soo hot because the ac had broken down so we all got off while waiting for our turn to go through immigration. That was fine but after immigration we were waiting for absolutely ages!! And yea it looked like there was a major problem with the bus as the bus driver and staff all gathered round the engine making thinks spark! argh!! So for a while there was a bit of confusion as we were having problems trying to understand what was going to happen as none of the staff there seemed to speak any ingles! Luckily I noticed an older American couple speaking in English and the man was speaking in Spanish to the bus dudes so I ran to him and basically asked for help with traslating hehe. Turns out that the only problem with the bus was the ac so we were a bit annoyed as we ended up having to wait in the immigration for over 5 hours for another bus!! So anyways after panicking that we weren't going to get on another bus we finally got on another one which was actually a lot nicer than the one we were on!:) hehe:) Not bad eh? Unfortunately... right I don't want to tell this story but I know Tom's going to tell everybody because he foudn it absolutely hilarious and I don't want him to totally embellish it making it even more embarrassing for me!! hehe:) So.. yes basically for the last leg of our journey I decided I needed the loo.. And obviously being on a long journey bus and as they did not make that many stops I figured that you were able to use the toilets for well.. no 2's. Soo I went ahead and then suddenly heard a knock on the door. When I opened the door there was one of the bus staff standing there and I thought I was just taking too long and he needed the loo so said sorry and sat down. ANYWAYS... so yes having gone into the bathroom for an inspection he came out and said something to me in Spanish which I interpreted as do not use the toilets when the bus is moving.. argh this is so embarrassing but it was then that Tom asked me what I had done in the toilet and yea well he basically said that some of the passengers started opening windows on the bus because of a 'bad smell'. That was when I realised that you're not supposed to do no.2's on the buses... I was sooo embarrassed hiding my head in shame as I realised the whole bus smelt my poo. But then to top things off the bus staff man took out fome air freshner and sprayed the whole bus's ventilation system!! Yes so.. anyways that is the story so if Tom makes it out to be worse just believe me:) hehe... Right.. so anyways we finally made it to our hostel in Santiago at about 9 or 10 in the evening! We were supposed to be there for 6pm.. There was a bit of a wait to check in in the hostel we were staying in called La Casa Roja which was annoying as we had not had any dinner yet. Plus we lost our reservation on a twin room cause we were late.. oh well! After checking in we went out for din dins across the road in the Shell service station hehe cause it was late and we couldn't be bothered with a restaurant so we had our first 'Superpanchos'! Hehe they weren't actually called that in the shop but yea basically we both had these massive hotdogs. Healthy.. hehe:) After that went back to our dorms for a good nights sleep. So anyways yep we ended up sharing a room with 6 other people. They were quite nice. Ended up talking a lot to these two guys a Londoner called Tom who was mega trendy boy and a Croatian guy called Julian. Anyways so yes so random the trendy boy called Tom so random turns out he went to KGV but left just before Tom and I got there! How funny is that?! Plus he's had a Filipino Chinese girlfriend which I thought was cool:) hehe. The Croatian guy was funny and kept asking me to go to Croatia hehe and he even gave me his number and email address!! Andy don't worry he has a girlfriend:) hehe. More about Santiago.. the next day.. on the 1st of February Tom and I stayed no at La Casa Roja sharing with 6 other people. The first night was fine although there were a lot of interruptions throughout the night but I fall asleep so quickyl that didn't matter. Tom on the other hand found it quite annoying. Anyways woke up at about 11 and once we sortede ourselves out we headed into town to get more chilean money out and to just have a general wander around. The town was quite cool kind of reminded me a bit of the HK because of how crowded it was. Ony thing I'd complain about is the fact that one of the main roads that we went down where all the bus stops and things were kind of smelt a bit too much like pee all the way down for my liking but was fine otherwise. Went up this hill kind of thing called Cerro Santa Lucia. That was gorgeous. It was like a little hill with a kind of european style building facade around it.. can't fully explain but will hopefully put more photos on soon so you can all see:) After that Tom nd I headed back to the area aroudn La Casa Roja in search of Dominoes hehe cause Tom was dissappointed that he wasn't able to have it before he left England hehe plus I kind of craved it too. Was quite funny actually cause we got this special deal where we got a bottle of fanta with our large pizza and I swear I have never seen a bottle as massive as the one that we were given that night! Seriuosly it was like 2 and a half litres of Fanta!! The next day i.e the 2nd of February we set off bright an early on our very first day on the Pachamama bus tour. Our bus guide was called Kenny and the bus driver was called Marco. There were a total of 13 of us on the bus including Tom and me. Yea there was a couple from Denmark called Jacob and Marion, then there were also these two English guys called Ben and James, there were two more English couples caleld Lucy and Dan, and Vicki and Al, there was also a girl from Amsterdam called Deborah and last but not least there was also these two English girls Freya (who has my charger!!)and Michelle who slept in by accident so we left at 10 instead of at 9 like we had all originally gotten up for! hehe:) They are really nice tho so they totally made up for it hehe. Anyways yep so on our first day on the bus tour we stopped off first in ths place called Pomaire. It's this really cute little town with well not much in it really except for a main street with some touristy shops and some restaurants down it. It's a really quiet little town actually and is quite cool in that it is situated in the middle of a while load of mountains. Really gorgeous but not much to do so was nice jsut for a short stop. Both of us had empanadas there tho on the advice of Kenny our guide and they were absolutely gorgeous. In case you're nt sure of empanadas basically they are stuffed pastries with anything from cheese to meat inside. After that we headed off again and made a quick stop to the Rappel Dam which supplies a lot of water to Santiago. Quite funny because there were quite a few little towns nearby but aparently it doesn't supply any water to them! After the dam we finaly ended up in Pichilemu where we actually stayed the night. It is a realy cool chilled out town with an amazingly massive beach! Tom said it was about 4km I think.. not sure don't take my word on that. But anyways yes we had a long stroll on the beach and relaxed a bit whilst some of the others headed off surfing and horseriding. I kind of wanted to suf but thought it would be best not to totally embarrass myself infront of people I was gonna be travelling for a few days.. well not straight away anyways! Later in the evening we headed off int eh bus to see the sunset! Unfortunately we missed quite a bit of it because this guy Dan was buying beers beforehand to watch the sunset... but yes was still magnificent! My first ever proper sunset! I never realised how fast the sun sets once it gets to a certain point! Was absolutely amazing loved it:) Was great seeing it off this small cliff as well where the bus had taken us. To finish off the evening, the hostel organised a barbecue which was quite cheap. Sooo nice had loads of meat, chicken, sausages, salad rice the works! Tom and I bought a bottle of wine whilst we waited for the food to be cooked was great. The wine was funny actually tasted kind of like sangria. Didn't actually taste like pure wine. But anyways after dinner Tom headed off to bed and I decided to head out for a few drinks with some of the others as I was kind of tipsy and didn't want to waste it hehe. Was great had a capirinhia and a glass of wine whilst listening to this awesome band. Had a gerat chat with the others as well and generally had a fun time. Left at about 2 tho cause I did get quite tired. So yes the next day the 3rd of February I did not feel all two well unfortunately.. guess the half bottle and a glass of wine and capirinhia did not go down too well...argh! Didn't really matter tho because we spent the most part of this day on the bus driving down to Pucon. We left at like 9am and got there at about 9pm! We did stop off once for a good one and a half ours in a place called Santa Cruz where we visited one of the most technologically advanced museums in Chile aparenty... yea hehe stragnely there was very little technology there.. The artefacts were absolutely awesome tho! There was even a display of these shrunken heads and these bones of two chilean natives hugging each other clearly tyring to hide from something very cool. After that tho the rest of the day was pretty borign to be honest was on teh bus for the whole day.. a few stops and that was about it. We checked in at a hostel called backpackers which is cool. Still here actually but on our first few nights unfortunately our room was kind of funny with no door on it!! Right I can't actually finish this now cause I've we're about to have dinner but will hopefully continue later tonight if not then tommorow! Ciao chicos!

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