49 days to go....

Well it's currently 49 days till I fly out to Chile and have a complete lifestyle change!

Just a bit of an update on my progress... I've booked my first set of jabs :/ Eeek! Not looking forward to them really but it's gota be done! I've also been running round in circles trying to find out my blood group!!! Pretty much everyone knows their blood group in South America, so I need to know just in case. But in England, the only way to find out (apparently) is to.... 1. Give blood 2. Be pregnant or 3. Pay for it... So I was going to the last one, but it seems I can't even pay people to take my blood :P

Anyway, my wonderful mother has brought me a kit that means I can test and find out myself.... I'll let you know how that goes...

In other news, I've been doin a fair bit of researching the country itself - did you know that there are 50 volcanos in Chile?? And that it lies right next to a fault line... In fact the fault line passes just under Temuco (the city I'm gonna be staying in!) Chile also has 3 distinct climate areas - the north is pretty much also consumed by the Atacama desert which, I think I'm right in saying, is the dryest desert in the world. The central part is very agricultural and there's a good climate for growing things, they're winters are kinda similar to ours. And the south has quite a lot of forest and wood areas as well as lakes and fjords and little islands all very close together - Easter island is part of Chile which I didn't realise!

So it's a vastly varied country with several native tribes and fascinating things to learn

I'm gona sign off now, but will hopefully update again soon :)

Hasta luego

Sarah