Arica Surf House

... cest pas facile de converser tte une journee ac soi meme,et les seuls chiliens a qui jai parle st super durs a comprendre!!! ypouhou, ca va bien se passer demain je vais aller a la plage, ac moi meme, et on verra qd je repartirai pour san pedro de atacama:... 13h de bus

desole pas de photos pour auj, jai rien vu du trajet... ah si, juste une chose ca yest le payasage est desertique!!! et ns sommes ds le pays des mines de cuivre!!! pour votre info (et la mienne!!!)

... number of seats, their bus had broken down. With so many people on the bus the aisle was completely packed and the smell was something to note. Arriving into Tacna was beautiful.

Even more beautiful was arriving into the Arica, Chile train station later that day as the sunset over the desert. We had thoroughly enjoyed our last day in Peru in Tacna having had amazing egg and avocado sandwiches at the market, soaking up the sun ...

... and our collectivo was full and off we headed!

It didn’t take long maybe little under an hour to get to the Peruvian check point which was much more modern than the one we had experienced in Copacabana!
Then we got back in the car, about 10minutes later we were through customs and on our last leg of our trip, Chile!

Our collectivo driver dropped us off at the terminal in Arica, and we got a cab to The Surfhouse ...

... tempted to diagnose those- a hazard of my profession.

I ate lunch at Pica del Muertito, appropriately named since itīs at the foot of the town cemetary. I had my first pastel de choclo, a kind of chicken pot pie with a corn topping. It was pretty good but I canīt really say the same for the Pap soda that went with it. I continued on to the cemetary which took up an entire hillside. The graves are buried in the sand ...

It's amazing how living through your own personal version of the beginning of every "Locked Up Abroad" episode ever made (Nat Geo Channel if you've never watched it- one of my faves) can make you appreciate the little things more than you thought you would. In our case, the tiny beach town of Arica on Chile's northern coast was just the cure to our stresses. We arrived Monday afternoon before sunset. We took the advice of a traveler we met at the SAE office in Cuzco, and ...

... watched us go in and not come out in handcuffs. Our driver who also looked relieved, hurried us through the line again and it was on to the Chilean authorities a mile down the road. For a moment, these two white-boys from the states got a taste of how Arab guys must feel when they are "randomly searched" at every airport checkpoint. The Chilean protocol was much more straight-forward. A short time later, we were going 100mph down the Pan-American again, this time for Arica!

... 6282m), Gallatire (6060m) and Acotango (6050m). It is no wonder this area has been recently declared World Biosphere Heritage. Before reaching our final destination at the Bolivian border, we stopped for lunch at the little village of Parinacota (4392m) where we visited one of the oldest church in Chile dated from the 17th century and holding lovely murals painted by the local indians. Our final destination was at the Bolivian border, at ...

... in the fish market, and with a beer or two, and hit the sack. The next day, we decided to watch the sunset from the beach. We found a boardwalk restaurant that had an excellent view for the setting sun, and after 2 bottles of wine, and the setting sun, the band came in to play. Well, I ended up dancing half the night, and had a ball! We were WALKING back, and I spied a disco with alot ...

... small oasis with a valley of green running through the mountains upon mountains of sand. I will eventually get back to upload more photos of our prior visit ' because during that visit we visited a museum with mummies and also saw many petroglyphs and geoglyphs. Today we spent the day in town and Carnival was taking place so we will show you some great photos of the different groups that were performing in the parade.