Ruben and the Australian girls left the flat early, so we had the place to ourselves, I cooked Claire a birthday breakfast of scrambled eggs under the watchful eyes of all three cats and then we went out into sunny Santiago. We booked our tickets on the 9:15am bus to Calama for tomorrow, then searched for the tourist information office near to our flat - which was closed, we're not having much luck with them. So we walked to the funicular railway at the foot of a large park and took the ride up the hill to be greeted by a massive statue of the Virgin Mary with her arms spread wide to the whole of Santiago below her and us. We admired the views of Santiago and had a wander around before descending by the cable-car on the other side of the park in to a rich suburb of Santiago.

Wandering through the wide leafy suburban streets we had a good nose at the properties and the goings-on and then walked in to the commercial / business district where Claire got 2 of her 3 birthday wishes (I can't tell you what the 3rd one was):

Wish #1: An english language bookshop, where we bought Tom Wolfe's "Bonfire of the Vanities".

Wish #2: An Internet store - Santiago appears to be very thin on the ground when it comes to Internet places, where we read Claire's Birthday messages.

In the evening we went to a restaurant recommended in our guide book where we ate huge portions of local food and drank a lovely bottle of red wine, surrounded by Chilean businessmen and families. When asked to comment on her birthda, Claire said, "Its been a good birthday, Will has been lovely and now I'm very tired."