So I think last time we spoke I was about to tell you about the longest bus journey ever. Having had the opportunity to spend the day re-organising and planning we realised that our time management had not been so great and having spent so much time in Argentina we now needed to re-arrange our plans and get ourselves heading north ready for the Inca trail in just less than a month. So we boarded our midnight bus our of El Chalten, following Ruta 40 (the tourist route) all the way to Bariloche. Despite the long, rough and bumpy road things were going well until we got to Perito Moreno (the town, not the Glacier) and as we all sat there waiting to go again, we began to realise that our bags were actually being taken off the bus - a not so subtle way of telling us that we needed to change buses. Unfortunately no-one really seemed to know when the next bus would arrive but thought it might either be in 5 or 6 hours or at 5 or 6 o'clock. As we were near pretty much nothing we all sat down for the long wait. All was not so bad though, we managed to spend most the time chatting with an American / Polish couple (Brian and Aga) and the time passed quite quickly. The bus finally arrived about 6 hours later and so the journey continued. Our plan at this point was to get to Bariloche and get an another bus as soon as possible to cross the border back into Chile and work our way up to Santiago before going across to San Pedro de Atacama. As with all the best plans, this one went quickly awry once we arrived in Bariloche. Whilst trawling all the bus companies we soon found out that the next bus vacancy was in four days. So with the help of another new friend (Rafael) we managed to all get on a bus to Mendoza, where we hoped to be able to cross the boarder into Chile and directly to Santiago. So, after a four hour stop over in Barlioche we continued on our way to Mendoza. Whilst on that journey we were seated next to another American couple who were also going to Santiago and had a bus booked out of Mendoza 1 hour after our bus arrived. At some point during the night the bus stopped at some station so we quickly booked some onwards tickets and continued on our way. The trip between Mendoza and Santiago was broken up only by the border crossing, which took some time and one of the customs officer´s there seemed very concerned that Tim and I were transporting fruit and vegetable products across the border and so went to great pains explaining the consequences of such actions - most of which we didn´t understand but the general point being if they did find such contraband in our bags we would be fined 120 000 Chilean Peso´s. Anyone who has ever flown into Brisbane airport will be well aware of the penalties for transporting such illegal items and so we were probably the only ones he didn´t have to explain to!! After having made it through customs our kamikaze bus driver got us down the race track mountain road in record time, overtaking buses, cars, trucks and pretty much everything else in his way - I think we descended about 1500ms in about 5 minutes! Still, it made for some incredible views and the photo´s are pretty cool. So, after nearly 40 hours, we made it to Santiago - I think this may have been my favourite city so far. Having encountered one really rude hostel employee where there no vacancies (thank goodness - the American couple we met on the way stayed there and said the staff continued to be really rude) we found a nice hotel, close to restaurants etc, had a long and hot shower and headed out to find dinner before a good night´s sleep so we could make the most of our short time in Santiago. We really just a couple of lazy city days in Santiago. We did a Lonely Planet walking tour of the city, had lunch at the fish markets, caught up on some internet stuff and finished the day with a dinner of cheeses, salamis and biscuits at a little pub that we found (not much is open in Santiago on Sunday nights). Monday we finished off the sites that we hadn´t managed to catch the day before and got an afternoon bus to San Pedro de Atacama. Once I leave this continent if I never have to catch another bus, I will not be unhappy!! Next San Pedro, the desert, the beach and some incredible national parks and really cool animals... Take care Tim and Tracey