Hotel Intillanka Iquique

... at Hospicio for the first 'real' flight, but progress had been made over the last few days and the fact that the instructor thought I was now ready provided some comfort. The take-off was easy, the 1.5 km flight to the landing site was smooth and the landing was soft all with the help of Pato giving instructions over the radio. The next milestone was soaring on ...

... of jellyfish everywhere. We were all very hungry and because we couldnt find a restaurant, we settled on KFC, and then went back to the hostel for the night. The goal on our second day was to book paragliding for the next day. We found a good company that was recommended. The following day at noon, we all went paragliding, which was an awesome experience. Iquique is one of the best places on the continent to go paragliding as their are huge sand ...

I've made a major leap since my last post, but I'll backtrack sometime in the future, and write about my experiences in Trujillo, Piura, Mancora, Lima and Arica, but for now I'll write a bit about the last couple of days here in Iquique. Miguel and I arrived in the evening; our bus had left at 2pm from Arica, but did not arrive in Iquique until way after the scheduled time, due to some sort of accident on the carretera. From the bus depot we took out my trusty Lonely ...

Wednesday January 7th As I make my way to the Peru / Chilean border I remind myself of the rules I posted much earlier in my blog. I enter Peru customs and get the first stamp. Wow that was easy and now I get the second stamp. I am officially allowed to leave the country. I go to Aduana to release the bike, the official has to get the form from a taxi ...

After more or less 48 hours on buses, Chris and I finally arrived in Iquique. We quickly checked into the hostel we stayed at last time and then went to find our friend Claudio. He had been kindly storing our climbing equipment for us while we travelled around South America. We walked around to his house, caught up, made plans for the evening, then took our gear back to the hostel. Neither of us could be bothered sorting it, so ...

Soon we were in the town Arica, Chile. Now Peru is one hour ahead of the Midwest, and Chile is two hours ahead of Peru because of daylight savings time, so we had a little time change to get used it. We got there just after some buses had left for Iquique so we had to wait about 2 hours for the next one. We couldn't read the menu at the restaurant so we ate ice cream and drank beer. Not sure if we'd have wanted to eat there either so it was probably for ...

... und werden dann kontrolliert. Naja, ne richtige Kontrolle ist das nicht. Nur gut, dass sie nicht den Rucksack ausraeumen. Um 7.00 Uhr kommen wir dann in CAlama an und nehmen um 8.00 Uhr den Bus nach "San Pedro de Atacama". Dort kommen wir gegen 9.30 Uhr an. Dimecres XIX - XI - MMVIII Avui fem una excursió cap a les ex-oficines de Humberstone i Sta Laura. Ens venen a buscar a les 8.30am. Després de veure una vista panoràmica de la ciutat d'Iquique ...

After spending the last few weeks at relatively high altitude it was time to descend the mountains and head for the coast as we made our way through northern Chile and into Peru. The bus journey was pretty spectacular for the first few hours if only for how desolate the desert was and then how stunning the mountains and descent were. Our first stop was the town of Iquique, which apparently had the highest consumption of champagne anywhere in ...

... Rapa Nui (Easter Island) which was great too. After that there were 2 bands and general dancing about till the early hours. I had a go at the Cueca dance but definitely need a lot more practice at that one, and waving my little napkin from the table did look a little pathetic next to a full size handkerchief. I had hanky envy. I met up with Juana again the next afternoon for what I thought would be a day out ...

... in the world, producing the<br>fertilizer sodium nitrate that was to transform agricultural lands in<br>North and South America, and in Europe, and produce great wealth for<br>Chile."<br><br>After this interesting visit to Humberstone, I got onto the Panamerican Highway and turned north, to Gigante del Atacama - a geoglyph og a giant human figure on the hill of Cerro Unita. I had the place all to myself, it isn't hard to find and free to enter. Then I was headed back south, to ...