From Iquique, Chile to Arequipa, Peru (Post #114)
Mike writes…
Well, for the past hour i have been trying to book accommodations on hostelworld.com but the computer i´m using isn´t cooperating with that web site so i have only managed to book one night in that time. In the meantime, i thouight i might try something else while Michele is doing whatever she is doing on another computer nearby.
So, i´ll try to fill people in on the hectic life that has been ours for the past 36 hours or so…
We woke up Friday morning (April 28th) around 8 a.m., ate our breakfast, returned to our room and packed up our stuff. By 11 a.m., we were at the internet cafe where we used the internet for too long. We needed to catch a cab to the bus station but first we needed to buy lunch and drinks, collect our bags at the hotel and pay our bill – and we had about 15 minutes to do all of this. We bought sandwhiches at a shop near our hotel although we didn´t know exactly what kind of sandwhiches we were buying (turned out to be chicken and mayonaise). Then we got our bags, quickly paid the bill and ran down the street to catch a cab. We made it to the bus station with about 5 minutes to spare but were confused about which bus we were supposed to board (a common occurance). O.k., we figured that out, got on, and about 30 seconds after we sat down the bus took off for Arica, Chile, the last town in Chile before the Peru border.
(Michele writes…)
We arrived in Arica at about 7:00pm, after a 6 hour bus ride, and took a taxi to our hostel, which turned out to be in the Arica suburbs (no wonder it was so cheap!) The owner of the hostel, Roberto, is a wonderful and crazy guy. The decorations in the hostel reflected his personality – loud and crazy. In the front of the hostel, there was a huge tiled courtyard. In the courtyard was a big tree with photos and other trinkets hanging from the branches. The courtyard tree was also filled with Christmas lights. Scattered about the outdoor area were several statues including a devil smoking a cigarette. There was also a bar area with blue lights combined with small flashing lights. Roberto had the music turned up pretty loud and he was handing us beers and talking continuously in a heavy Chilean accent. The whole atmosphere was pretty overwhelming, even for this adrenaline junkie. After we put our bags down, Roberto called us a cab and we went downtown and ate dinner at a very nice place (probably too nice for our budget but the food was fantastic). I had conger eel for my dinner. This is a dish that Mike and I have come to really like during our travels thus far in South America. By the time we got home and went to bed it was 1:00a.
We got up at 7:00a the next morning (Saturday, April 29th), scarfed down our breakfast, and caught a cab to the Arica bus station. We tried to change Chilean pesos into Peruvian soles but the bank at the bus station had run out of Peruvian soles (probably because Monday, May 1st was Dia del Trabajador, otherwise known as Labor Day).
The reason we went to the bus station was not to take a bus but rather to take a collectivo across the boarder from Arica, Chile to Tacna, Peru. A collectivo is like a taxi but it is much cheaper and only leaves when it is full of people. We didn´t have to wait long for our collectivo driver to gather up 3 more people for the drive across the boarder. We handed our passports over to the driver and he did all our paperwork for us before we took off. Crossing the boarder in a collectivo is much faster than taking a bus because if any one of 30-40 people on the bus has a problem, you are going to be stuck at the border until the problem gets resolved. In a collectivo, there are only 5 people and the driver crosses the border everyday so he knows all the officials. We had no problem at the Chilean border. After being in Chile for one month, we quickly got an exit stamp in our passports. Next we drove through no man´s land (the area between two borders), before getting to the Peruvian border. There, we took our packs out of the back of the car, had them x-rayed, and handed in our paper work. We were now in Peru and had to turn our clocks back 1 hour (which means we are in the same time zone as the east coast in the U.S.).
We drove a total of 1.5 hours from Arica, Chile to Tacna, Peru. The collectivo dropped us off at the national bus station in Tacna where we went from bus company to bus company looking for the next bus to Arequipa, Peru. We found one leaving in about 45 minutes (at 10:45a) and bought tickets for the 7 hour bus ride. During our time on the bus we saw 3 Chinese films dubbed over in Spanish. These movies were definitely R-rated with a lot of graphic violence. Mike and I couldn´t help but cringe, looking at the children around us, when there was a rape scene or a part in the movie where someone´s arm was cut off and blood was spewing out everywhere. Anyway…
We arrived in Arequipa, Peru (population 2 million) at about 6:00p with no place to stay. While I guarded our bags, the Spanish-speaker of our little group, Mike, bought a phone card then called a couple of places in our guide book. Mike only had to call two places before finding a room. We then caught a taxi from the Arequipa bus station to the downtown area where we were pleasantly surprised at how nice our hostel and room was. We dropped our bags, went to a nearby restaurant, used the internet (for a record low of 21 cents per hour), returned home, took a shower, and went to bed.
That´s how we spent the last 36 hours. Whew!
Tags: Category #28: Peru
Michele Harmon
i am about to make the same trip.
how much did that ride in the collectivo cost you, if you don´t mind my asking. im trying to figure out how much i will spend on my trip. if you could possibly write back and let me know that would be great.
I’m also planning a trip through peru and chile and was hoping you could give me some advice. I was thinking of going to peru first and taking a bus down to chile. What do you suppose would be cheaper?