We arrived in Arica a little worse for wear following our torrid trip from Cusco but it was awesome to see Jason. When we got to the hostel we found them there waiting with the hostel manager Roberto and it looked like they had just arrived but apparently he had kept them there for 45mins ranting when all they wanted to do was get into there room and settle in a bit. This guy Roberto was very eccentric (thats probably the politest way to describe him!) and very in your face so much so that he had some how managed to get Jason to admit to being Chloe´s ex just to shut the man up!! We went into town having got Roberto to call us a taxi the casonova appeared from his room looking all dishelvelled with lipstick smeared across his face, all very amusing as he was trying to play it cool, we had a bite to eat and found that Arica consisted of very little, definately not a honeymoon destination!! We met a couple of guys from Jersey in the hostel one who worked there and the other his mate was staying with him, Chloe found this whole Jersey thing very intreguing jumping from questions regarding language spoken and currency used to her personal favourite the Jersey tax system and these contant questions continued at regular intervals for our entire time in Arica. We had been promised a slap up BBQ that night “all you can eat and drink” so were eagerly anticipating that when a crazy local women storms into the hostel all guns blazing and starts shouting at Roberto then on her way out for good measure turns to Chloe and rants to her for a while!! After this Roberto locked himself in his room and declared the BBQ was off! The guy who worked there took us to a local chippy for some grub and we all bought some alcohol to have back at the hostel, as the drink flowed Jonny the other guy from Jersey whips out his guitar and starts singing somgs he had written I dont know whether it was the alcohol or not but he was actually pretty decent, had a good night out anyway! Next day we all sorted out leaving which had it not been for meeting each other we would have done the previous day and spent the rest of the day finding our way back from the town centre to the hostel which took an absolute age!! We got back to find the BBQ was on tonight which none of us really wanted as none of us were drinking that night! I saw the largest lump of meat I´d probably ever seen and thought that this could actually be quite good however following one sausage and a steak (which was good!) the meat dried up, so much for all you can eat!! We bade farewell to each other the following morning Jason and the guys heading up to Cusco and us down to La Serena.

La Serena was very nice but after 3 months of South America we were beginning to take things for granted so when a plaza was previously beautiful it had regrettibly become just another plaza and where the surrounding mountains were once amazing they had become just hills I think it was at this point we both realised it was time to leave South America but we still had 2.5 weeks left! We had planned to vist Damas Island which is inhabited by penguins, sea lions and dolpins and also visit the world famous observatories however the Chilean weather saw to us doing neither. We spent our time in La Serena reading and going to the Cinema befor ebooking a bus out of there to Valpareso!

We got to Valpareso late the same day and it was all very rough around the edges quite dirty looking, lots of butchers and fish mongers I desribed it as Tooting-on-Sea! But also had some quite pretty colourful buildings on hills so also quite San Fransico-esk I imagine!! We had decided that we would go skiing to fill the remainding time we had in South America in Santiago but met a guy in the hostel who assured us there was no snow so skiing was not such a great idea. It was then that Chloe suggested we change our flights and fly out early! We woke the next day to poring rain which consolidated our decision to leave South America. We hopped on the first bus the next morning to Santiago, having admittedly not given Valpereso the best of chances to impress us!!