Hostal Colonial Arica

... had given us details of somewhere else to try to just as we were going to head there, a lady stopped us and asked in English ´Can I help you´ she did not look Chilean (blond hair!), and we said we were looking to insure the bike. Turns out she worked in insurance and went inside another office to make a phone call to see if she could help us. No, but she knew a man who could! She also ran a hostel which sounded great ...

... p`tit dej sur la playa<br>je galere, y a rien quo est ouvert, au culot, je rentre ds un super chic hotel et il accpete de me servir mon ptit dej ac vue sur la mer, encore une fois, pas un chat!!!<br>ahhhh.... jai le ventre plein, jai tellemt faim q jingurgite meme les 2 sachets de sucre comme ca!!!! et tt ca sur un fd dinstrumemental de vieilles chansons francaises: "vs les femmes, vs le charme". qui connait lauteur??? Richard ...

... journey yet this was not the case. First we realised that in Chile they were a further hour behind so it turned our 2 hour delay into 3 hours. This was not a major shock as we were told that there would be a place to exchange our money at the bus stop and planned on having something to eat and use the internet etc to pass time. We soon realised the exchange office was SHUT!! so we had no money/food ...

... and are quite small. Some were buried in the fetal position. They are from the Chinchorro culture that lived in northen Chile before the Inca.<br><br>I left and headed further up the road, looking for the "Refugio del picaflor", a place the hotel owner recommended that I see. I didn´t know what a picaflor was but that this place had something like a garden. So I walked, stopped and asked directions, walked, asked someone ...

... back with me wedged in between two large men. I couldn´t find my seatbelt but figured it didn´t matter seeing as how I wasn´t going anywhere, no matter what happened to the car. The old Ford charged ahead into the dead streets, dark and empty before dawn. 30km to the border...20...10. I kept watching out the window, anxious to see Chile. We slowed down and stopped. 4:30am. The border post doesn´t open until 7am. We were car number 9 in the lineup ...

... NOTHING but dust, sand, and rocks for miles in any direction. The trip was a series of high, winding mountain passes connected by straight lines of asphalt across the barren valleys in between. I rather enjoyed not seeing anyone or anything for long stretches while taking in the desert vistas, but Taylor- the desert-born native found it boring and retreated to the sanctuary of his i-pod's tunes and dreamland. <br><br>As the time grew closer to our ETA, we ...

... bad movie watching to be had, before finally arriving at our final destination twelve hours after departure: the beach!<br><br>First up: get to our guesthouse, recommended by our Cochabamban housemates, which we managed with minimal difficulty. Second: some real food, and being near the sea could only mean one thing... Seafood. Oh man, as much as i was itching to be near the beach i was also dying for a real meal of seafood, and so eat seafood ...

... a fost proiectata de Gustave Eiffel, a fost prefabricata in atelierul lui Eiffel din Paris, apoi adusa aici in 1870, la comanda nu stiu carui presedinte de-al lor. Biserica este pe structura metalica, combinata cu adobe (chirpici) si vopsita. Este deosebita. Si mai este o cladire proiectata de Eiffel - fosta cladire a Vamilor. Am mai vizitat si fost gara, de unde pleca trenul spre La Paz (Bolivia). Maine o ...

... this was supposed to be Aricas big site to visit, this was goin to be a seriously long wait for our flight. Catriona decided shed do some shoppin, which is lookin at everything in the shop and not buying anything as she has no room for anything in her bag (I have half her stuff in my bag as it is). We even spent a few hours in an Internet shop where a cockroach tried to run up my leg NICE. Eventully flight time came and were onward and upward to the big smoke of Santiago.

... bizarre it was to be in the middle of a desert at the edge of an ocean - it has not rained in this town for over ten years. Back at the hostel Patrick played with Simon, the owners' 4yo son, Blair chatted with other guests, and I vegged out in front of the telly. We had leftover pizza from lunch for dinner and had an early night. The next day was pretty lazy, some playing, some napping, some blogging, some tv, and a lovely wander through the ...