Well, from San Pedro de Atacama, I was headed off to a destination of Huacachina, a sandboarding mecca...but never got there.

I started off on an 11 hour night bus from San Pedro to Arica at 8:30pm. We got to Arica in the morning, and I was able to find a guy driving a beat up old car to take me and 4 other people across the border to Tacna. That was about 1.5 hours to get to Tacna.

In Tacna, I was looking for a bus to at least take me to Nazca, where I could overnight then go to Huacachina in the morn. But the best bus option was to take the 6:30pm bus, which would get to Ica around 8:30am.

I stored my bags and walked around Tacna for the day. Tacna is actually really quite nice, and very tranquil. It is a non touristy town, that's for sure. Main plaza is really nice - beautiful church, monuments, gardens and fountain. A block away from the main square is Avenida Bolognesi, which has a park running down the avenue - very nice place to just sit and read a book. I was quite impressed, as it being a border town, I expected a lot less out of it.

So I get on the 6:30pm bus...I wake up around 6am, to find that we are stopped in a little town called Camana. There has been an avalanche on the road, so we're stuck! Well...to make a long story short, my 14 hour bus ride turned into a 26 hour bus ride, I skipped Huacachina since I did not have a day to spare, and ended up in Lima...had to catch a flight the next morning to Quito.