Men with padded uniforms and stern looks have lined us up in a cold, breezy building in the middle of the night. Our belongings are stacked on metal pews in front of us. They are eyeing us suspiciously, pacing the room.

I'm dressed in my bus sleeping gear - running shorts, a singlet and (sadly) no bra - and my teeth are banging together because I'm so cold.

This was how we were welcomed to Chile. At 2am the border control men stood asking us about fruit and cheese. One approached me and said: "Do you have any fruit?" I said no.

"No fruit?" he asked. Again, no. "No oranges, apples, peaches..." He showed no sign of stopping. "NO FRUIT!" I yelled, scared he would go on listing forever as if he was working for the Bubba Gump Shrimp Company. I've been woken up and forced into the cold Andes mountains and I'm ready to tell the border men where to stick their oranges, apples and peaches.

Anyway, we got to Santiago de Chile which is a really nice city particularly for its size. It holds a majority of Chile's 15.5 million people. I've heard a lot of people say Chile is a very Americanised city and I could see why immediately. It even had a Starbucks, the first we´ve seen in all the cities we've visited.

We didn't stay long in Santiago because we're beginning to feel the pull of smaller towns. We are a little sick of finding ABCs (another big city) and so we went on to La Serena, 10 hours north of Santiago and dripping in charm. Remarkably it was in this seaside city that I put on a jumper for the first time since leaving New Zealand. More about La Serena later.

Check out more photos from my trip in my Flickr album.

Find out about Chile.

Read more of Kelly's blogs.