Blogs from Arica & Parinacota, Chile, South America

Another relaxed start to the day. The hotel was relatively busy and had a full table of German speaking tourists this morning. We had to wait a few minutes to have breakfast. The Swiss couple from yesterday came out, so we took their place. Gradually people left until just one other couple was left, so I asked them “Sprechen sie Englisch” and they did, so we started conversing, they are from Austria and traveling in Chile for 3 weeks. We have met so many nice, like-minded people on this trip. We left on schedule at 09:00 and our first stop was the small town of Socoroma which was the closest town to the epicenter of the earthquake in 2007 and was mainly destroyed but has since been restored with help from the Government. The building are ... read more

Arica et le parc national Lauca du 23 au 27 septembre Après une nuit de bus nous sommes à Arica qui sera surtout une étape pour nous permettre de louer une voiture (et oui on y est arrivé!!!) et de faire les courses pour les 3 prochains jours de road trip. On aura quand même pris le temps de se balader un peu, d'apprécier les rues piétonnes et de visiter la cathédrale San Marcos construite par Gustave Eiffel. Enfin elle est en réparation, et on s'est fait dégagé au bout de 35 secondes, mais sinon elle était belle ! Le lendemain matin nous voilà parti à bord de notre bolide, un beau pick-up tout blanc flambant ancien. La route pour le parc lauca défile. Nous passons les géoglyphes de Lluta, qui ne sont rien d'autres que ... read more

R: we're writing this one more for completeness really. We had some difficulties getting away from Cusco, as it's becoming clear to us that we have chosen quite a complex route and maybe we should have let the connections lead us, rather than our wish list. Anyway, we intended to fly to the southern border then cross into Chile before moving on to the Atacama desert. Not wanting to waste too much time on buses we booked a flight to Tacna, but had to go back to Lima first with Peruvian airlines. They had gotten us to Cusco well enough (despite having realy old planes). But the day before we were due to leave, they abruptly cancelled our flight and rescheduled us so we were doing the border at night. Well, we had no choice, so ... read more

Today I took my flight from Santiago to La Paz. I’d left my packing to the last minute which made the morning more stressful than it needed to be, but I’d packed my food for the airport the night before, got the metro at rush hour with all my backpacks, got a bus from the centre to the airport, checked my luggage in and got through security with plenty of breaks for coffee and plenty of time to relax. Security was relaxed. The only items that were prohibited on the plane were explosives, sharp objects and fizzy drinks. I suppose the liquid laws haven’t reached Chile yet, and perhaps terrorism from Islamic groups is non-existent here. The first flight which took about 2 hours dropped us off in the middle of the desert in Iquique, still ... read more

23.01.15 nach Green Bakers Lodge Der Tag war wunderschön, warm, prima Wetter. Zuerst die unglaublichen Serpentinen, die von oben gesehen so toll ausschauen. Den Rest des Tages entlang des Sees “General Carrera” und nur am Schluss noch über einige Berge zu dem Fluss an dem unsere Lodge lag. Leider war die Straße sehr befahren und jedes Auto, das uns entgegen kam, hüllte die Straße in eine Staubwolke - die war manchmal so dicht, dass man erst mal gar nichts sah!!! Ich blieb manchmal einfach stehen und ein gemeiner Bus war so weit in der Mitte, dass ich in den Graben fahren musste. Werner, das Gruppenekel, war nicht so feige, er fuhr trotz Gegenverkehr munter weiter und es schmiss ihn. Was dann folgte, war ein Höhepunkt der Schauspielkunst. Die ganzen nächsten Tage humpelte er elendiglich daher, musste ... read more