Last evening there was a huge, peaceful protest of middle class families with children in the streets of Santiago. Official figures say there were over 1.2m people. The atmosphere was friendly, jovial and carnival like. The same scene played out in many other cities in Chile. No violent protest at all.

This morning, in Santiago, groups of volunteers were out cleaning up graffiti and rubbish from the streets.

The president of Chile, Sebastian Piñera has announced a total change to his cabinet and said that he has "heard the people" and that Chile will change. He also announced that the night-time curfew will be lifted from Sunday 27 October at midnight - other city curfews have already been lifted.

It is our view that the situation has calmed right down and that the country will be returning to normality in the next few days.

As we have consistently said, the main tourist destinations such as Torres del Paine, Patagonia in general, Easter Island and San Pedro de Atacama are NOT at all affected by ANY of last weeks civil unrest. These destinations are the same today as they were last week as they were the week before last ie fantastic!

Santiago airport is open and functioning normally. Hotels in Santiago are operating normally and open for business.