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Hello everyone! After taking a bus, 3 planes and a cab ride across the peru/chile border we´ve finally made it to our first destination in Arica, Chile. We got off our last plane in Tacna, Peru and decided to take a cab across the border instead of the train as there was a nice (but very persuasive cab driver at the airport). This turned out to be a bad idea as we payed way more than we needed too! Lesson learned! We´re very much in the desert at the moment, when we left the airport there was sand as far as the eye could see for the 30-40km ride across the border. Crossing the border was interesting. The taxi driver helped us fill out all of ourforms and while we were waiting with our bags that were being searched he held our spot in the line-up to get our passports stamped. He then had to run back to the car to get it inspected and drive it through the border to meet us and our bags on the other side, we then got in the car and rode a couple of minutes to the chilean customs building where we did it all over again.
We got to Arica around 8 o´clock this morning and immediately found a hostal and had a 5 hour nap! We woke up and headed to the town square where we realized the main street with all the shops and restaurants was only a block from where we were staying. We found a church that was designed by Alexandre Effiel , who if you didn´t ´figure it out by the nameis the same guy who designed the Effiel Tower in Paris. The church was built in France and then dissasembled and shipped across the world to Chile.
We went for dinner at a restaurant on the main street and there happened to be a parade of some sort that passed right by us. There were traditional dancers dressed up to the nines and one homeless man who´s pants weren´t quite covering his buttocks that danced around in front of us for close to half an hour! There are also tons of stray dogs (and consequently stray dog poops) all around Arica and along the highway between Peru and Chile. There´s even one that looks just like Lucy!
We haven´t quite figured our plans out for the next leg of our journey yet but we hope to head through Lauca National Park and then into Bolivia once we decide to leave Arica.
Bye for now,
Kristy and Michael
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