Hop, Skip, Jump........ Sleep

Deep breath in........... Long, slow breath out............ The dry air circulating through the aircraft burns my throat and stings my eyes as I groggily awaken from my semi conscious slump. Sliding up the window shutter I notice that the blanket of clouds below me has begun to change from its usual dark, almost invisible aesthetic to having a slight pink tinge. It is the start of  new day, the first of our adventure. I blink a few times, wipe the sleep from my eyes and turn and look at Niki. After a 10 hour struggle she seems to have found a position of suitable comfort, one in which her, her blanket and her two pillows have somehow melded into a single organism. She chuckles softly at the TV screen she is watching, no doubt careful not to disrupt her new found harmony. I return to the window just as the majestic, snow capped peaks of the Andes begin to emerge from the clouds and announce the landscapes variation from the vast expanses of the Pacific Ocean to the undulating contours of the worlds 4th largest continent.

Arrival in the city of Santiago was relatively uneventfully. The immigration lines were non existent, the smallest I have ever experienced while on international travel. We had our bags and were sitting comfortably on a shuttle speeding down the highway, past the slums on the outskirt of the city in about 30 mins flat. The Shuttle driver was extremely friendly and took it upon himself to educate us on "His" city. His area of expertise? Local hills. He knew many of the most intimate details about the three main hills in town, their relative size to each other and their potential uses. "That hill is the biggest hill in the city. People are riding and also sometimes running. It is a little bit bigger than that hill over there. That hill has houses though....". So, so far we are pretty up to date with our "Hills of Santiago" knowledge. Stay tuned, because tomorrow we may learn about the local ditches.

Sorry about the sarcasm, very sleep deprived at this point.

To sum up the rest of our first day in South America before I fall asleep.... We have walked around the block 4 times, we have eaten some of the local cuisine and we are about to pass out from exhaustion. Tomorrow, with a little more sleep under our belts we will begin to explore.

El sol se levantará mañana y quién sabe lo que traerá la marea?
(The sun will rise tomorrow and who knows what the tide will bring)