Perched high on a hill and therefore with a commanding view over the town, the Residencia Offenbacher-Hof seemed a good choice but they only had one room to offer us and this of the 'last chicken in the shop' variety.
Situated halfway up the polished wood and therefore noisy stairs, small doorway necessitating the six footers among us to duck in order to gain entry, peculiar entry to the kazi meaning simultaneous ducking and shimmying and a rather garish pink wall covering made me want to say "no way Jose" but Kerry's weariness spoke first and we took it.
We took further advice from the LP and ate tasty kebabs a couple of blocks away to replenish our battered and spice-denied bodies and how delicious that hot sauce tasted as it dribbled out of my meal, down my chin and onto my shirt.
You would perhaps have thought, as I did, that spicy food would be the norm across this continent but it is not so.
South of Mexico, where the chillies can result in bowel movements which make you wonder if you're passing lava, our dining experiences have been quite bland in comparison to, for example, Britain's national dish of curry.
Back in our room, which we had now named 'The Hobbit House', I fished around in my wash bag for my toothbrush and found everything covered in hair gel courtesy of a razor inflicted nick in the tube - a highly irritating end to a largely unsatisfactory day.
Next morning, after nine hours of comatose recuperation and with the sun blazing through our curtains the world felt a much happier place.
That was, until Kerry flushed the lav which broke the cistern and we went to unlock the door and found that it was jammed and we were incarcerated.
I don't know how many hotel doors we have had issues with but it is not an insignificant number.
What little tolerance I had at the outset of this trip evaporated completely somewhere in Central America and I was soon informing reception via our open window that we were stuck, and while we're about it the kazi appears to be kaput.
Once freed by our Chilean/German host, a hearty breakfast of muesli, crepes and lemon meringue pie set us up nicely for the morning's task of sourcing a better room which in turn gave us the opportunity to see a little bit of Vina del Mar.
Meaning "Vineyard by the Sea", Vina sprang up at the end of the 19th century when nearby Valparaiso was connected to Santiago by the new railway.
Valparaiso was a hotbed of Chilean moving and shaking at that time, an important port on the trade routes prior to the opening of the Panama Canal and home to many a rich merchant.
Dissatisfied that the railway lessened the exclusivity of the town by providing easy ingress for the oiks of Santiago, the affluent built mansions a few miles along the coast and surrounded their properties with grape vines.
Thus the name of the town and, to this day, Vina is clean, safe and friendly whereas Valparaiso is tired and comparably unappealing, but more on that later.
Our search for a new room bore little fruit. We looked at a good half dozen or so but the more we looked the more we realised that, despite the morning's problems, we rather liked the Hobbit House in comparison.
Creepy hosts, no Internet and dark, airless rooms are as much of a turn-off as comfortable bed, oodles of natural light and puddings for breakfast are positives.
No, we'd have been Tolkien rubbish to even think about going anywhere else.
We made for the beach after lunch and soon discovered that the 200 yard long stretch of sand is painfully inadequate for a town with 1 million inhabitants.
We shoehorned ourselves in between some folks but everyone felt far too close for comfort, particularly that annoying little scrote flicking sand on us.
The sea was quite cold but that was welcome given how hot it was on the beach. Space was at a premium in the water too, though once you'd braved the pounding waves and got a few feet out you were on your own.
There's a very strong current here so it was reassuring that both the tide was coming in and that a lifeguard in a boat was on constant patrol.
On the way to dinner we weighed ourselves, something we've done four or five times throughout the trip to see how our inability to eat what we want and lack of routine exercise is affecting us.
The good news is that our blood pressure and BMI are within the bounds of what these machines deem normal and that I didn't throw my jeans out that were huge on me once I'd trained for the marathon a couple of years ago.
That is all!
We have found, since reaching the Southern part of South America, that the language is more difficult to understand and that many things have different names.
At times in Ecuador and Peru I felt we'd almost cracked the language barrier but recently we've been demoralised and frustrated again in spades.
Our dinner menu almost may as well have been in mandarin and if we are tired of bus journeys then we are equally fatigued with the mealtime charade.
I can't tell you how much we're looking forward to Australia and speaking English again.
We found next morning that we'd been most fortunate with the morning sun yesterday. Sea mist surrounded the town, as it apparently does most days until lunchtime when it clears and everyone hits the beach.
We did likewise and made sure we were there early to pick a good spot, out of the main throng and in a corner to minimise the possibility of having sand flung on us.
It was all we wanted to do, all we have left in us is an ability to lie flat on our backs and periodically dip in the sea.
After a couple of days of this we took the train along the coast to Valparaiso to meet up with Terry and Indygo, the mum and daughter that, if you're paying attention, you will recall we met on the 'Andean Explorer' train in Peru a few weeks ago.
Six months into their trip and fresh from a fortnight on Easter Island we had much to discuss and it was evident from our almost crazed chattering that we were all desperate for someone to talk to who isn't our significant other.
I'm sure they appreciated it as much as we did and I love Indygo because she's so like Jasmine was at that age.
Looking forward to seeing you both in South Africa, or over in England.
Much as we enjoyed lunch we were glad to get back to Vina, or perhaps more to get away from Valparaiso. At this stage of the trip, beach-less port cities that have an overwhelming aroma of urine are not high on the agenda so it was lovely to get back to lazing on the sand.
Our last day in Vina was a bit of a wash-out because the mist didn't clear all day. That rendered our sanctuary of the beach a no-go and all we ended up doing was walking to McDonalds for an ice-cream sundae and spending the rest of our time semi-sparko in our room.
It's not like us to lounge about doing nothing but you have to every now and then.
The next day, Sunday, we ambled up to the bus station for the 1135 to Santiago, technically the last such journey we will make.
I'll just clarify that: we have made our last bus journey on this trip.
Ever since Sunday 15 April we have been heading for Santiago, albeit in an extremely round about way.
New York to Santiago by land (or sea when necessary):
Amazing.
Exhausting.
Unforgettable.
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