San Pedro de Atacama

Still recovering from Andy´s loss and my illness, we definitely were able to make the best of a two-day stay here in this desert town. To put this place in a few words, I´d use hot, dusty, rustic and gorgeous skies. From here we were able to enjoy some of the offerings of the Atacama desert.

Chile! First stop: Arica

So crossing the border was a lot easier and less stressful than I had imagined. We took the bus down to Tacna, which is the border city on the Peruvian side. Then we hopped into a ¨taxi collectivo¨with five people and a driver and he took us across the border and to the bus station in Arica, Chile. I was hassled a bit by the customs guy, but when I made a joke about the double LL´s in Llewellyn making ¨Y¨sounds, he became a big softy.

Arica is a great city. Its a chill beach town with a long coastline, a busy downtown and most of the people seem hip and stylish. It´s nice to now expect toilet paper in the bathrooms (and toilet seats too!). The hostel that we stayed at totally made our stay as well. It is built around a courtyard and run by a really eccentric guy named Roberto. The atmosphere was really relaxed and it is definitely my favorite place that we´ve stayed in so far. The first night we bought two huge bottles of Chilean wine for $3.50 USD each and brought them back to the hostel. While sitting around the table, a girl we were sharing a room with from Denmark had the same camera as me and she taught me how to use settings that I had never tried before. So included are some cool photos using the color filters.

The next day we went down to the beach but in the morning it was overcast and I started to feel really sick. Within minutes I came down with really bad traveler´s stomach and a fever. After sleeping it off in the hostel hammock, I mustered up the strength to go down and make it back to the beach for sunset. Still have been very sick all the way down to San Pedro de Atacama. And on our overnight bus ride, someone stole Andy´s backpack out from under his feet while he was sleeping. With his $800 camera inside. Filing a police report in your second language at 7am is not a great way to start off our stint in the Atacama desert, but we are trying to keep our spirits up.

Arequipa

Arequipa was our next stop on the descent down into Chile. I was a bit horrified when we were told that our plans to continue on were thrwarted by the closure of the Pan American highway. Apparently, civilians were upset about the plans to start mining in south Peru and they stood out on the highway until their demands were met. Effective? Yes. Makes my life easier? No! However, the protest was lifted on the day before we actually did want to leave and it didn´t effect our plans, besides give me a scare and cause us to weigh all of our other options, such as skipping Chile all together.

But back to Arequipa... where to begin? I´d say this is a huge city of many layers. There is an upscale band of shops and restaurants surrounding the main square that even included food from Morocco! This area was tempting but far out of our backpacker budget. Our hostel was about 10 blocks outside of this area and we found nice cafes to eat at. A standout place was this woman´s family-run cafe where her and her son whipped up a salad with whatever ingredients I could translate into Spanish! Pictured is cerviche, Peru´s classic seafood dish that is uncooked but marinated in citrus. Delicious! This part of town was pretty nice. However mostly I found this town to be falling apart in certain bits, parks were overgrown and locked, and Arequipa was swarming with cars. The polution was, dare I say, harder to take in than Beijing´s! I also included photos of a church that was open nearby (it said I could take photos as long as I didn´t use flash!). The churches here are VERY ornate, and I was cracking up over the sign that translates to ¨Turn off your cell, Él Senor (God) wants to have a conversation with you.¨ The photo with the candles was, surprise, surprise, a protest. We have been seeing a lot of these in Peru!

Colca Canyon

Had a 2am wake-up call in order to cram Colca Canyon into one day. We drove out a few hours from Arequipa and had breakfast in a small village called Chivay. Afterwards we made several stops along the Colca Canyon before reaching the most popular lookout point. This spot is frequented by enormous condors, a highly respected and protected bird in Peru. It was amazing to see them soaring right above our heads!

Colca Canyon is actually twice as deep as the Grand Canyon of the US, but it was a lot harder to see as it wasn´t a big drop down the middle but just dips in between mountain ranges. The photos don´t really do it justice, but believe me, it was a sight to see! On the way back we enjoyed a dip in the La Calera hot springs and a 20 soles all you can eat lunch that included cerviche, alpaca and guinea pig (guess which one of the three I actually ate)! And one of the small villages we hit up on the way had lots of wild life that I particularly took to.

Lake Titicaca Part 2

After Uros, we set sail for the major island of Taquile. This island is much bigger at 5.5 x 1.6km (and more permanent!) than Uros and the people seemed more focused on their own daily tasks than hitting tourists up for money. Plus, it is a pretty solid island with the highest point reaching 4050m! The inhabitants speak Quechua and have many quirks that I found interesting. For example, red is worn by the married and black is for the single. When a couple gets married, a support belt for the man´s back is woven with hair taken from his mother and bride-to-be. And instead of shaking hands or hugging, when the men greet each other, they exchange coca leaves from their side pouches! Plus both the men and the women create the handicrafts to sell to the tourists, with the men as the primary knitters. When Andy and I bought woven goods from the town square market, attached were little tags with the price and family name on them. The cashier took the tag off and gave 90% of the 15 soles we paid (about $5) directly back to the family.

In total, the lake and Taquile were gorgeous and we were fortunate enough to get lovely weather for almost the entire day (the first photo posted is of a looming storm on the boat ride in). I also enjoyed the view of the Bolivian mountains from the island. This was probably my favorite day out so far, it was just really nice to be out in the fresh air and to be surrounded with such astounding natural beauty. Plus after seeing my legs, our guide, Cesar, called his pharmacist sister to get me pills to stop my bug bites from itching. And miraculously, the pills work!