With Argentina ticked off the list a few weeks ago, it was time to do the same to Chile by visiting our last stop, Arica. It´s pretty northern (no different accents or chips and gravy here though) and it´s on the coast giving us a pretty easy route into Southern Peru.
Rocking up at the bus terminal pretty early in the morning, we had read that it wasn´t the safest place to hang around, so we slung on our packs as soon as we stepped off the bus and scurried out of the station with our heads down. With some rough directions of go down this road and then its half the block down this road we set off and found our hostel pretty easily. Ross the kiwi owner welcomed us and luckily our private room hadn´t been taken the night before so they showed us straight to our room, and following a short break for brekkie at 7am, we crashed out in our new home away from home (Jack do you want to get any cheesier?!)
A fair few hours later and we were ready to eat so off we strolled into town. Claiming it was a 15 minute walk, we didn´t really know if we had gone the right way after 15 minutes, on a road that wasn´t really on our map (er yes it was), but we followed it anyway and ended up in town after 30 minutes. Jen had done her research so we headed straight to the pier where we would meet some larger than life friends. These guys were everywhere, must have been about 15 of them, some swimming about, some trying to eat plastic bottles, others just chilling out on the rocks waiting for the fish heads and offcuts the fisherman throw in the water (would be my option if I were a sea lion).
The sea lions weren´t the only ones waiting to get in on the free fishy action, there were about 100 pelicans or cormorons or whatever they were (I´m sure Jen will chime in with their name when she edits, apparently I´m not trusted to blog myself - no you are not but on this occassion i dont know the correct name). These guys were lining the roofs, waddling around the pier, on the rocks with the sea lions, the boldest even trying to nick some fish from the mongers when they weren´t looking.
After amusing ourselves watching animals for a bit, and after Jen´s 100th photo, we settled into a little restuarant on the pier which wasn´t our first choice, but that was fully packed. Turned out to be a blessing in disguise as the other place was really nice and dead cheap. Being on a pier. of course the menu was seafood based and after we sat down the waitress said something to me and in my usual annoying way I always just reply with "Si" and it usually works out ok. This time however it didn´t as the waitress didn´t come back for absolutely ages, she must have asked if we had been served or something. O well, after flagging down a different waitress we finally got some munch down us. Seafood soup followed by fried fish all washed down with a beer, Jen with a shandy.
After a brief look around town we headed back and chilled out and I streamed some sporting event on the internet, been a while since I´ve blogged so don´t really remember what it was! Following sport we realised that the shops were shut as May 1st was their equivalent of our bank holiday, and asked the hostel staff where we could eat. "Round the corner" was their response so off we went. Not finding anything for 10 minutes Jen was getting stressed out (I was not) but we eventually found a fast food place which was luckily a Jack classic for dinner......chicken and chips.....which was awesome......half a big chicken, a mountain of chips and a massive salad which was accompanied by only a tiny 250ml bottle of coke. We yammed that down and headed back to drink some water after being parched from the meal and lack of coke.
The following day we were keen to take in some local culture. Arica was famous for it´s museum´s with mummies in them, as the Chilean´s mummified their dead up to 3,000 years before the Egyptians did yet the pesky Egyptians got all the credit, I don´t see Chilean mummies being taught in school....who the f is Tutankhamun anyway.
But anyway, they had excavated the mummies. Not sure what you can make out in the photo but there are 3 mummies lying flat at the back and three skulls at the front. Sorry if you didn´t want to see that, but its educational people!
Obviously not content with our intake of the dead, we strolled off down the road with a sketchy map and found a graveyard that Ross the Kiwi had recommended as it was really colourful, unlike any other graveyard you´d ever come across normally.
Flagging down a taxi, we headed back to town. The taxi driver had lived in New York a few years back and was keen to practice his English. He was really sound actually and said how Chilean´s thought English pound coins were lucky and after we were desperate to give him one (as he was so sound) we realised my wallet with English money in was back at the hostel. Sorry cabbie.
Getting dropped off in town we ventured back to the pier area as Jen fancied trying the local delicacy, Cebiche which is basically raw fish marinaded in lemon with some onion thrown in there. Sounded disgusting to me but Jen seemed to like it and tried to force me to eat some for about 15 minutes which I refused which annoyed her somewhat. But that ish just ain´t gonna happen!
I instead went back to the same restuarant we had been yesterday as I had spied a seafood empanada which was absolutely awesome when I ate it.
The afternoon would be much of the same cultural activites, this time a museum but on top of a bigass hill which wasn´t that welcome. Head´s down we marched up the hill thingie, stopping for loads of breaks, even getting beaten to the top by some fat dude (I blame Jen for slowing us down) - (er we had one break and the fat dude was ahead of us from the start anyway!)
Was pretty cool when we were up there though. We went into a war museum and some dude was keen to film us "looking natural" at the displays, everytime we glanced around he told us not to. We did see an actual German Luger which was cool, mainly cos soldiers prized them and I´ve seen Band of Brothers so I know all about this shizzle.
They clearly had taken some short cuts on expenses and purchased some shop mannequins to display the war time clothing, clearly detectable by their slightly camp poses. Jen with all her museum-y knowledge wasn´t too impressed - but found it amusing.
However, me being a slightly immature male, was impressed with the guns on show so I obviously had to pretend I was some kind of soldier.
Being on the top of the hill they obviously put a statue up there, as seems to be the custom out here. Big hill = statue, this time a poor man´s version of Christ Redeemer.
Getting back down we were keen to see the famed builded in Arica, a church designed by the same architect as the chap who did the Eiffel Tower. After looking around a bit we think it was this one, not 100% sure but we convinced ourselves it was.
Retiring back to the hostel, we were hungry and decided to go back to the chicken and chips place as it was so awesome and cheap, this time sneaking in a litre of coke to wash it all down with. After stuffing our faces yet again we headed back to the hostel for our last night in Chile. Next stop....Peru!
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