Santiago - Mon & Tues

It is a lovely city but plagued by fog and mist at this time of the year, it is so close to the mountains that they have a very strong influence on the cities climate. Monday we had a city tour and when we were up on the loookout over the city we could only see a small part of the 6,000,000 inhabitants because of the mist. When we got to Constitutional Square the police had it all cordoned off because the President of Paraguay was visiting for trade talks. We got a good view of the ceremonial parade by the army horses with security provided by tough looking Chilien caberinoes, great fun and lots of photos. Tuesday morning we had a trip up into the Andes mountains. The weather started misty with very poor visabilty and our guide asked us if we really wanted to go, we all said yes as the weather had not let us down for the whole trip. Well as soon as we started the climb up the mountain we came out of the mist and had a beautiful sunny day until our return to the city. The trip up the mountain was scary, a narrow two lane road with a sheer drop on one side, we did it in two legs the first had over 40 zig zags and the second about 20. Our hearts were in our mouths but the driver knew what he was doing so we had no problem. When we got to the summit (10,000ft +) the air was thin but the view was brilliant.