Christmas!

Leather seats, lots of cushions and plenty of space characterized our first bus ride experience in Chile. At first glance the bus terminal in Calama looked well organized and systematic. That is, until the clerk ran outside to intercept the parking bus. Raging and screaming, however we had gathered enough information to ascertain that the wrong bus had arrived. They had been expecting another bus but nobody knew where it was. While this commotion was going on we heard a well accented scream ¨Bastard!¨, someone had tried to steal a bunch of bags from an obviously foreign family. A small scuttle and chase ensured, however everything was recovered.

We realized that we actually didnt know anything about Arica, so we occupied our time on the bus reading up all about it and the rest of Chile. After reading through the guide, we werent too hopeful about Arica. Upon getting closer to the city we were reminded of Mancora. A city on the coast surrounded by desert. Arriving early meant that we had the entire day to explore and decide on a hostel. The first thing that we normally do is go to the main square and get our bearings from there. Our dilemma was that there wasnt one, instead we made our way to the main street, perched our self on the bench right across the street from a lady selling cakes. Thankfully things started to open at about 1030am, waddling down the street full of cake is not my idea of early city exploring. To our dilemma, all the hostels that we had checked out were either far more expensive then Lonely Planet blabbed about, or that they were totally booked out. Our last chance was the hostel that we originally intended to go to. However being mentioned as one of the best hostel in Arica, we did not have our hopes up. The cab driver that drove us to the hostel actually spoke English. He had lived in the states and loved to call us gringo. On our way to the hostel, it seemed that he knew everyone, particularly one older lady who he proudly identified as one of his lovers, followed by one of his raspy laughs. Upon arrived, we received the last bed and were told to enjoy the all you can eat breakfast at 12pm!

Arica

Not having any expectations when coming into Arica is really the best way to go about it. It doesnt have much to offer, not particularly beautiful or charming. Our hostel was a 5 minute walk from the beach, so we took full advantage of killing the entire day on the beach, and the few days to follow...Arica turned out to be exactly what we needed. The hostel, Sunny Days, was an amazing place. The owners were super friendly, informative and served up belt busting breakfasts. They recommended that everyone try the surf lessons, from the guy living in his van by the beach. He looked more like an 80´s porn star rather than a surfer and would magically appear at the hostel day and night.

We decided to spend Christmas there, with all the friendly people and two kitchens at our disposal. Our Christmas festivities turned out to be far larger than we had anticipated. From the original 3, our Christmas dinner ended with 7 people in total. Funnily enough, we had more than enough food to feed everyone, even thought it was planned for 3...The table was littered with delicious Chilean wine and two deserts to boot. One thing that really impressed us was the range of cheap wines. For just $3 we could get a good bottle of wine, namely Carmenere, a type of wine mostly grown in Chile. It was a unique experience celebrating with people of different ages from different countries, cooking foods representing a number of nations. From Swedish meatballs, to twice baked potatoes, a grander feast would have been hard to find. Unless you are Polish and you make 12 dishes in celebration, which is what 3 Polish girls did.

After spending 5 days in Arica, it was time to move on. Our original ticket out was straight to Valparaiso, however we decided that we had enough time to break up the journey by visiting the Pisco Valley. Onwards to La Serena and New Year festivities!

Hello high season!

We spent an hour seating in the bus while the tourists ahead of us had their baggage scanned and checked, reinforcing the fact that we were no longer in the Andean countries. Of course the luggage scanning was more procedural than actually necessary, clothes were poked rather than taken out.

Arriving in San Pedro de Atacama was like crossing over into a little desert hide away. It felt so foreign from where we had just came from. For one, the people looked more european. The lunch deals included things like pasta and wine and not the usual rice and potatoe as we were used to. That being said, coming from Bolivia into Chile the first thing that one notices is that while there is a better variety of things to eat and drink, they are not cheap. In hindesight, we should have visited Bolivia last, that way we could have been amazed at the prices and stocked up on hats, jumpers, socks and paintings.

Arica

We encountered many firsts in Chile. Our travels in the northern part of South America have all been during the low season. However, we were now in a new country, facing peak of the season prices. Our initial plan involved getting to San Pedro and then catching a bus all the way down to Valparaiso. However this plan was quickly thwarted by the rather busy and exesperated clerks at all the bus companies. There was no room on ANY bus on the 21st through till the 26th. We were at a loss. Spending 5 days in San Pedro did not appeal to me or to Dorothee in the slightest. We needed to get out. Upon scouring the city and gathering as much information as we could, we found out that the nearest city of Calama had more busses and a bigger population to cater towards, it was our best bet.

Calama. It doesnt deserve a section titled as such. Simply a large, grimmy and dusty city in the middle of nowhere mainly populated by unshaven older men. Calama is a city build aorund the mining industry surrounding the region. With all of our gear, tired and wanting a break, we walked blocks upon blocks looking for bus companies. Several hours of walking later and approaching atleast 7 different companies, we were always greated with the exact same message, ¨Everything is booked through until the 26th¨. It was getting dark and we had no plan C. We decided that spending a night in Calama was not a good idea. A simple strawl through the main pedestrian street saw us diving out of the way of fully armoured riot police officers followed by police and ambulance vehicles. We happened to be in Calama on the day that their soccer team beat their rival, so the city exploded in noise and colour. Riot police and what looked like battleships patrolled the streets. Getting out was our first priority and crazily enough, going north out of Calama proved just as difficult! We bought the first bus company that had seats going to Arica, 8 hours north of our current position. Unfortunately we had to part ways with Dorothee as her plans were a little different.