I got up at 8.30, the sun was shining and the view out of my window, of the cathedral with the volcano rising up behind it, was impressive.

I hailed one of the 1000 taxis that run rounds around the Plaza de Armas and went to the bus terminal, where a bus was about to leave in five minutes, so I got that one.

I sat next to a black Peruvian lady, and her and the kid sitting on the other side kept staring at me, for no discernible reason. I listened to my cd's, watching the landscape turn from hilly brown to flat brown, the road simply a strip of asphalt in the nothingness.

Just before Moquegua, we had to get out for a checkpoint and Ricardo, a Peruano with curly hair and a goofy expression of about 45, started a very poor attempt at seducing me. He obviously thought white chicks are easy, so he wouldn't have to try to hard, as his tactics were far from subtle ('I am sure you will wear your bikini in Arica, no?' dribble, dribble. Yuk.)

In Tacna, after a much needed toilet stop, I was escorted to the taxi collectivos which take you from Tacna to Arica. They squuezed me in with 4 other ladies plus the driver, and he sped off towards Chile.

The lady in the back asked if I could close the window a bit and I tried the button on the side, stupidly expecting it to work. It wasn't until the driver motioned for me to pull the window up manually that I realised how silly it was after three months of travelling in South America to think anything electronical would actually still function.

I checked out of Peru (smudgy stamp in passport) and into Chile (neat stamp but in middle of new page). The driver, just before we got to Chile, put a package in his socks. The lady next to me saw it too, she looked at me and shrugged, so I took my lead from her and pretended not to notice, there being no point at me making a scene being stranded at the border for hours because of a dodgy driver.

In Arica, I got a taxi to take me to Residencial Arica, which has a (working) TV with about 50 channels. I had a walk around and could tell I was in Chile by the following tell tale signs:
1. No cars honking at every crossing. In fact, no cars honking at all.
2. No one staring at me
3. No one trying to sell me something or dragging me into their restaurant
4. People wearing shorts and flipflops. I even saw some surfer dudes, goatee and all.
5. There are shops which do not feature miniature llamas, ceramics, table cloths and alpaca wool

I realised that everything is relative, even when travelling. Your impression of a place is necessarily coloured by certain subjective factors. Arica, for instance, would have seemed pretty bland and scruffy if I had come here straight from the UK, however after six weeks of Bolivia and Peru it seemed like the high point of civilisation. It was all wonderfully familiar and comfortable.

I walked along the pedestrian mall and I saw the ultimate sign of civilisation sticking out high above the crowds. Although I promised myself I'd lay off the papas fritas, I could not resist and just had to have a Big Mac...

After, I had a te con leche and strudel (one of the good things the Chileans picked up from the German/Austrian immigrants) but the te was so strong it tasted like coffee. In my room, I zapped between MTV's The Real World and a Spanish music channel. It was beautiful.