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Published: September 22nd 2006
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ELVIS, CHARLY & CANDICE
All rosy and happy on our way to the border. As is normal, life doesn’t really always go to plan! Thinking that I still had a month left to extend my three month visitor pass and organize my documents: it was quite unplanned to find out that my three month pass was actually a two month pass and that I had but three days to get to the border and leave the country. However, 24 hours and a 17 hour bus ride later, Elvis and I rolled into the Peruvian border town of Tacna. Nothing remarkable or distinguishable, Tacna is just another normal Peruvian town: mud brick houses, outdoor markets, dirt roads… quite bleak with its grey desert back drop, a few scrangy trees, a patch of grass here and there… and.. in the outskirts, mud brick houses turned into woven reed shanties, no more larger than the average bathroom. Mounds of rubbish lined the roads as we made the half hour taxi ride to the Chilean border. Crossing was easy, stamped out of Peru and stamped into Chile.
Arica is Chile’s border town, about another half hour from the border! And! What a half hour it was to accentuate the stark contrasts a simple border line can make- gone
were the garbage lined streets, no such thing as reed houses here.. or even mud brick houses… concrete all the way! Paved footpaths, nature strips (with grass), gardens, trees, esplanades along the beach, and, to my absolute delight, as we pulled into the station: A SHOPPING CENTER!! With a roof!! And walls!! And a food court!! Despite all the shops being closed, I was quite content to walk the deserted halls (you can do that in this shopping center) peering into the store windows.
Instead of jumping straight back on the bus for home, we decided to live it up a little and holiday for the nights in Arica!! After all, this little town was the closest I’d been to normality -slash- civilization in a long while. One of my requisites was that our hostal HAD to have hot water. ***Mental note to oneself: actually check that the hostal has hot water, and don’t just go by what the owner says*** I was one disappointed and cold Candice that exited the shower dripping with water that’s barely register as warm, let alone hot….. ahwell…. Better than saucepans!!
And afternoon of planned touring through the town turned into an
afternoon of Elvis sleeping and me channel surfing the hostal’s English cable programs. Nothing like a vacation filled with endless episodes of ER and desperate housewives!!
We scoured the town that night, looking to sample so e fine Chilean cuisine- got completely lost- although, someone else (who had the map) would claim otherwise and absolutely refuse to ask for directions, claiming all the while that he knew EXACTLY where we were. (not mentioning any names of course)… we settled for the worldy recognized dish of broasted chicken and chips.
We were up murderously early the next day.. border crossing easy: stamped into Peru for an extra three months… arriving at Tacna bus station to find that all the buses back to Cusco left at 8:30am- It was 8:35am, and typically, the only day EVER in Peruvian history- all buses left on time.
Thankfully (????), there were still at least thirty other people wandering the terminal, stranded, looking for a way home. Gallantly, a gentleman rose and said, “I HAVE A BUS!!” so we all shuffled to the unmarked office window and paid for our tickets. I should have known by the unmarked office that we were headed
Tacna Bus Station
Waiting for our bus home. for a far from luxurious bus ride. And as I climbed into the bus, narrowly missing what I hoped was just animal poo, it suddenly dawned on me: I’m riding like a local, with every man and his chickens!!
As is the norm with long inter-country bus rides, the first couple of hours are always fun and joyful; by the third, your ass starts to hurt and you cant find a comfortable position……. And then it hit… about hour number four…. A rancid smell- much, much, MUCH worse than the animal stink that I had gotten used to- this was foul farts taken to the next degree. For some fresh air and respite from the odorous surroundings, I stuck my head out the window (along with everyone else on the bus it would seem.) Like a puppy hanging out the window, with its ears streaming in the air, we drove along the mountainside all blissful.. until an alarming scream and my head being pulled by pony tail back into the bus. I managed to glimpse something the looked vaguely like a rotten baby’s nappy flying by where my head had been just seconds ago. It would seem that the source of the stink had been eradicated and flung out the window.
The hours dragged murderously by, with a toilet stop every few hours (typically enough, toilet stops minus the toilet)- in the shadows of the bus or in the security of a shrub, women hitched up their many layered skirts and squatted; while men, well they just flopped out their floppies where they darn well pleased!
Our rickety old bus pulled into Puno (about 8 hours out of Cusco), and there I made the executive decision that my bus days were over (at least for that night anyway!). Puno is a pleasant little city, bordering on the world’s highest lake: Lake Titicaca- so being it another one of Peru’s tourist Meccas, it wasn’t hard to find a room for the night.
Loaded with bread, juice and chocolate we were on the first bus to Cusco next morning….. AND….. 10 hours, 3 kit kats, 2 banana sandwiches, 1 litre of orange juice and one and a half chicken empanadas later, we made it home. I must say, my mud brick home never looked so good!!
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