Northern Chile and Peru

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From Patagonia we travelled North by overnight bus for a stopover in Santiago, it was a beautiful Saturday and the town was out exercising in the parks and football fans were having a massive rally in the streets. We wished we could have stayed longer but we boarded a 3 hour flight to the Northern Chilean town of Arica. So after a 4 day boat trip, an overnight bus and a 3 hour flight we had managed to go from one end of this very long country to the other.

Arica is well known for it surf, although it wasn't really happening when we arrived, so we had a few quick surfs and some lovely food at the stalls around town. Mainly 2 course set meals with lovely soup and a chicken or meat dish for $2-$3.

We then headed across the border on a surf trip with a local surf guide. The trip started promisingly with a night camping under the stars far from anywhere and seafood cooked on an open fire. The surf was starting to improve (there was not another surfer to be seen on this coastline), but it soon became clear our surf guide was not all there upstairs, a lifetime of hard living seemed to be catching up with his brain and as we tried to figure out a way to make our excuses and have him drive us back to civilisation without running off the road we both came down with food poisoning. The perfect excuse! We rushed back across the border in Chile stopping by the side of the road every 10 mins and spent a couple more days recovering in Arica. Was not the surf trip we were expecting but an experience nonetheless!

Then it was back across the border once more into Peru to the historic town of Arequipa at the foot of the Andes, still feeling a bit fragile. No hikes were attempted and we travelled back to the coast in search of more waves close to Lima in Punta Hermosa.

The surf was really picking up and we both got stuck into the big waves with Lucy really pushing herself in tough conditions, get angry at Tom and giving up on a number of occasions! In the water we saw seals, sea lions and plenty of dolphins, Lucy was terrified of all. Days consisted of long surfs and fresh ceviche on the beach and when the swell died down we headed onto Lima to celebrate Tom's birthday.

Lima offered more Ceviche which Lucy had by this point become totally addicted to, regardless of any upset stomachs along the way. We had an awesome meal at a trendy restaurant in the Barranco region of Lima for Tom's birthday, we also stayed in this part of town which we would highly recommend for anyone heading that way.

While in Lima the 'El Classico' was on, this was the big football game between the 2 fiercest rival in Peruvian soccer. We were warned not to go, and if we went to get expensive seats away from the fans. The game being sold out the only way to get tickets was from the dodgy looking scalpers, we thought we got the safe seats, turns out we were with the crazies.

There were no allocated seats so a single file queue formed about 2km long to get into the ground, if you weren’t holding onto the person in front of you, a stream 50-100 people would start sprinting to push in. If you were lucky the police on horses beat the hell out of the queue jumpers with big sticks, otherwise you lost your place. We didn’t rush and eventually got into the stadium trying to stay out of the trouble, we managed to take a couple of photos, but were quickly warned by someone to put our camera away and get the hell out of that area otherwise we risked being robbed ... we took the advice, just as the home side (our side) belted home a goal to go 1-0 up and we got out of there before the crowds started rushing out the stadium. An awesome experience, even Lucy enjoyed it after recovering 3 days later when her heart rate got back to normal.

From here we head onto Canada via Vegas and the Pacificic West of the USA.

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Photos

lima from above
had to pass through some pretty scary areas luckily on a bus before we got up the hill