Beautiful places, colourful buildings and unfriendly people

silly chileans
hi there. i'm not sure where you're from but i've read with great interest some of your entries, especially the ones from djibouti (very uncommon destination). i'm very puzzled as to what it is you do and if you're a tourist if some kind of ex-pat worker (you don't talk about what you do in the entries i've read). i'm really quite shocked you've had such bad experiences in chile, or in arica actually. the chileans i've met in chile and abroad have all been super super friendly and will go blocks out of their way to help a foreign traveller (they are sometimes not as friendly with their own countrymen). the only thing i can think of is that perhaps they thought you were peruvian, but i don't think that's likely. i certainly wouldn't pay much attention to the negative comments from peruvians regarding chile or chileans. peruvians have a chip on their shoulder regarding chileans, almost to the point of paranoia. don't get them started about pisco, chilean companies in peru, or the chilean military. i can assure you that chile is a very friendly country with great people and i hope your negative experiences in arica don't put you off too much about visiting the rest of the country. lauca national park is beautiful. if you go back to arica definitely go there. i'm not sure if it's a destination in and of itself. the san pedro de atacama area further south is great for a couple of days. chilean food isn't the most exciting in the world, but there are definitely dishes worth trying. i recommend chilean seafood and cheese empanadas, pastel de choclo (a type of corn-meat pie), and the paila marina (seafood stew). hope you enjoy the rest of your time in south america. cheers!

hmm... your journey sound interesting. However, i think the write up is too short. perhaps, u shoud break it to few chapter... some talk about food, some talk about the "strange" ppl u met along the way. Anyway, reli enjoy reading your blog. Looking forward to hear more from you... It reli stir me up. It reli good to c aroung the world. Now, i just like one of the character in the Paulo Coelho's book, the crystal's shop owner, u know... the owner in The Alchemist.

Hi, very nice trip. May be u can describe a little bit on the chinese shop / town over there. Good luck to your next trip.

Not only in Arica
I have live in Chile for 3 months now, and the bad attitude is in every city and town that I have visited, The Chilean people are something special, that's all I can say.