SURFING

Aside from the 5 hour bus ride on Wednesday, the majority of the last four days has been spent chilling out on various beaches.

Arica was really lovely, we had such a good time there relaxing (I'm beginning to learn the difference between relaxation and lazyness) and swimming in the pacific. It's such a nice place to swim, even if it is freezing. We also took a few beach pics in an attempt to make everyone at home jealous. I hope it works.

The bus to Iquique was pretty horrible, for some reason Chileans like to close the windows to make the bus even more stuffy and ROASTING HOT. Evie and I also got taken off the bus by three policemen and were questioned about whether we were smuggling drugs inside of us... It was so scary. We were so relieved when we finally arrived at the hostel. Which is SO CHEAP and about half a minute from the BEEEEEEEACH (which is even nicer here than in Arica) :D

It's such a nice city to explore. There is loads of colonial architecture and the main square has a beautiful memorial with fountains around it.

We explored the markets a little and invested in a few bits of jewellery, before having a lovely wander along the beach. We've also discovered this awesome german cafe just around the corner from the hostel that does incredible burgers and cake. And I do love german cake <3 Yesterday I had my first SURFING LESSON and it was EPIC. I had so much fun, I forgot just how much I love watersports. I managed to stand up on the board too, I was rather proud of myself. Unfortunately I didn't get any pictures of the experience, but if i get a chance to have another lesson I'll try and get some then! The rest of the day we spent on the beach. It may seem that we're doing very little at the moment, but we're just making the most of our last few beach days since we're heading in land to San Pedro de Atacama on Sunday. Wandering down the beach we came across some cool graffiti.

Pretty impressive eh?

And then we watched the sunset... it was so beautiful!

Face Plant #3

This one was slightly less epic than my others as there were very few witnesses, just the two guys who work here. I was literally just walking this time, no where special just around the hostel half asleep this morning. I managed to stub my toe on one of the floor tiles whilst falling, but managed to swiftly pick myself up again, thinking nothing of it. However once I sat down I noticed I'd sliced my big toe open and was dripping blood everywhere. Lovely.

One of the guys who works at the hostel helped me to make a makeshift plaster for it until I could get upstairs to my first aid kit (Maris Mercer, you life saver!) as he quite understandably didn't want me to get blood everywhere. It's not too bad at the moment, I just can't put it on the floor but that's not too much hassle. I'm quite impressed with myself for going so long without a fall to be honest and I could have done something so much worse. Health and safety isn't exactly South America's forte.

Heading to the beach soon to join in with some labour day celebrations. And apparently salt water is good for open wounds? I'll just have to try my best to not get sand in it.

We made it to CHILAYYYYY

It's been a little while since I last posted (sorry about that!!) but I'll try and get back on track. I don't really have any excuses for not posting, I've just had a few very lazy days.

After one night at The Point in Arequipa we decided to move hostels to the Wild Rover because unfortunately it was no where near as good as the one in Cusco. It had just been moved (it must have been VERY recently) and the hostel was empty with zero vibe. I mean it has the potential to get better in time, but it really wasn't what we were looking for.

During the day on Thursday Evie and I went exploring and wandered up to the viewing platform for a view of the volcano 'El Misti' which was really incredible. I'd love to have been able to do a trek up it but my asthma has been so bad at altitude it would not have been the brightest idea (boooooo).

In the evening there was a UV party at our hostel and a swedish guy called Jonathon invited us to join his table. We had such a good night since drinks were at criminally low prices - s/6 for two vodka oranges, that's less than 2 quid!! - and ended being covered in UV paint. Apparently I'm awesome at pool when I've had a drink and managed to thrash an irish and american guy along with the kiwi guy called Simon who's now travelling with us. They even played some epic music like Rage Against the Machine and Ramstein which makes a lovely change from some of the crazy club music over here. So all in all we had a very good night!!

Friday was spent recovering from the lack of sleep from the night before, though we did venture out for a short while to look at some of the local architecture and the massive food market.

I was so tired I couldn't stay up for very long on Friday to socialise. However the early night was very much appreciated since we had to get up at 6am on Saturday in order to make our 7am bus to ARICA, CHILAYYYYYYY. That's right, we've successfully crossed the bordered and have spent the last few days lounging on the beach and exploring the new town.

The currency here is a bit crazy, for example we got some epic ice creams that cost $1650 each. Which is about 2 quid. How good is that??? It's difficult to get used to the fact that you aren't actually spending a small fortune on every meal. So we were devestated when we ordered Pizza for $3200 and THIS is what turned up.

Four layers of plastic cheese with no tomato puree, just slices of tomato and horrible crumbley bread. YUCK.


However Simon and I later ventured out and discovered a place called telepizza, which is a fraction of the price of the minging pizza place AND incredibley tasty. Just look at the difference.

So no contest, we're eating at telepizza for the rest of our time here :P