OK now I´ll start this again and point out that I am travelling for the first time by myself and so I have to do all the things like blogging and snapping that Damien usually does. I am neither a professional writer nor a professional photographer so please don´t expect too much.

At least this trip started gently with a short trip to |Auckland , only 3 and a but hours in the plane and into a country where they speak a language that is not too different from my native tongue.

There´s not much to say about Auckland. It´s a city but not really a "thriving metropolis". On Saturday 8 of us walked around for somewhere decent to have breakfast. It´s hard to imaging, coming from a city like Melbourne, having trouble finding a reasonable breakfast bar, but we walked the streets of Auckland , obviously in the wrong direction looking for food. Finally we found some eggs Benedict without lamb and some coffee that was not to die for!!

Then we split up and half went shopping through the few shops that were open while the rest of us hopped on a ferry to a p´lace called Devonport, no not Tasmania.

Why did~´t we go there to east? It´s a beautiful little township in a n obviously wealthy area - more BMWs per square foot than Toorak . The residences are either very cute weatherboard ones or stunning new apartments overlooking the bay. I think that they had escaped from Sydney Harbour.

Back to the airport on Saturday pm for a flight to Santiago. So we´d had breakfast in Auckland city, lunch at Auckland airport dinner on the plane when we crossed the intermational dateline and started Saturday again - breakfast on the plane, lunch at Santiago Airport and dinner later that day in Santiago city. I was slim and slythe like before that Saturday but NOW well!!!

Santiago: Paris of South America.

There are some really charming old colonial buildings, lots of tree lined avenues, and plenty of parks but a lot of boring new glass boxes.