Inca Kola, now made by the devil incarnate coca-cola. I can't help thinking it looks like cheap cooking oil, or a really terrible urine sample. Lots of people seems to drink it though and in central and south America, Coca cola sells more drinks than any other drinks company, and if there are other companies, they buy them too. I really hate them, can you tell? Wiji loved this drink, in the same way that he likes Ki-ora...the wrong way! Lol.
We were woken at around 6am by some loud instrumental music and the lights being switched on...we weren't sure why this was necessary, but it gave us the opportunity to look at the desert landscape on the very very outskirts of Arequipa. It was very grey and dusty, with no vegetation as far as the eye could see, making for a very barren landscape. The morning light was very bright and sunny, but you could also see it was bitterly cold by the few lone figures tightly wrapped up. We saw that people had built one room homes out of grey rocks with corrugated iron used as a roofing material, which was held down with more rocks...it looked desolate.
Having made it to the bus terminal we were awake enough to enquire about our next bus journey to Tacna. Lucky that we did, as there was some kind of bus strike the next day. Originally we planned to stay at least a night here, but because of this we decided that it was best to catch the next bus. We had, of course, missed the next bus by that point...so it ended up being the one after that, giving us some time to get stuck in a traffic jam in a taxi, on the way into central Arequipa for breakfast.
Arequipa itself is famed for its cathedral and monuments inside the city built of the white (really grey) stone, that looks a bit like pummice. The central plaza was lined with palms and already had benches full of people warming up in the sunshine. We didn't get any pics of this, because we were far too busy locating a suitable breakfast place to refuel and inhabit. We did have a look around at some shops and even visited a creperie before we had to get back to the bus terminal.
Arequipa, a passing view of the volcano from the bus window.
Our next journey of 6 hours to Tacna took us through some epic desert landscapes. The bus was quite empty and some of the films had english sub-titles...at Wiji's request. Lol!
We stopped in the middle of nowhere for an agricultural customs luggage check to make sure that we had no fruit or veg on us. They had some lovely full colour posters with the names of all the fruits and veg you were not allowed to have...it was really interesting... for me! Lol.
Going through a tunnel in a mountain side...oh hi! I have surprised you with the flash! Wiji takes a break from watching chod films.
By the time that we had reached Tacna it was dark and the bus station seemed quite dodgy. It was very noisy and had masses of people with giant tarp bags stuffed to the brim waiting around. It was here that we needed to get a ride to the border, we really didn't want to hang about so after checking out the situation we decided to get a collectivo car to cross the border rather than a bus.
Naturally getting a car meant we were sharing it with an unknown number of other people. Not to worry, we met our fellow passengers in the car park as we were hurried along by the driver. They were three young people, possibly from Chile, who looked totally blinged up in their hoodies and trainers. Lucky for us all it was an american car and could just about fit the six of us in! The boot could not be closed due to the fact that all five of us had enormous luggage, this was of no consequence to the driver who stuffed it in anyway!
It was quite mad hurtling along in the dark, packed in like sardines as we all took it in turns to try to find enough arm room to fill out the Peru immigration papers that the driver handed around. It took about an hour to get to the border where the driver hurried us through, pushing all 5 of us passed the qeueing locals...it was cringeworthy, but the immigration officals waved us through and we popped out the other side of the building to be picked up again in the car park, by the driver who then took us to the border to Chile.
This border was super busy and we had to get ourselves and our luggage ito a massive queue. This was much more offical and sniffer dogs and handlers patrolled the crowd. In no time we were through, having again been sheperded by our stern driver. However as we hauled our backpacks out to the car we were just in time to see our blinged up co-passengers being marched across the road for some one to one questions in another building. Our driver took it all in his stride and let us know in passing that he was going to go and sleep in the car. Cheers. Thankfully we didn't have to wait long before the trio emerged, clearly a bit annoyed by the experience...we would have loved to hear what had happened, but didn't ask!The driver took us all to the international bus station in Arica, and we all went our seperate ways. Mad, but hey...we had made it to Chile!
After finding that four consecutive bus companies had no seats left for the last journey to Calama (our next and final stop before San Pedro de Atacama) that evening, we were forced to take the only bus on offer with some lovely seats next to the toilet, no less! Lucky for us that the grotty bus terminal caff was still open to sell us a fried egg sarnie for tea. This was much appreciated by us and we used as many condiments on them as possible!
Our next challenge was to have our bags half heartedly searched in the most frustratingly random of checks before we could settle into our lovely seats next to the toilet! We, of course, were on the bus that left late and were surrounded by people who had the most incredible amount of luggage...we gawped at them all frantically stuffing things under and above seats...until it was all too much. I opted for a nibble on some vally (um), and Wiji tuned out with some music for the next 11 hours of the night.
That of course wasn't it for the night...we got woken up at 3:30am for a Chilean inter-departmental customs check. Here we had to get out of the bus with our hand luggage and stand around a massive bench in the middle of the road. This was not so easy for the rest of the bus who had to cart all the stuff they had squirreled away, out again! Lol. Wiji purchased some coffee from a lady, who added condensed milk to it...aaarrrggh!
After this pleasant little break in the journey we next awoke at 6am to find ourselves in Calama...getting off on a deserted street in the outskirts because there was no bus station apparently. Lol. We were met by some lovely doggies, and it was here that we demonstrated the 'talk like Bendad' to the rest of the bus as we fed our complementary cheese sarnie to one particularly lovely dog who lent on me as I stroked it and it shut its eyes... much to the amusement of the other passengers. The Lonely Planet mentions that Chileans are fond of coddling puppies, but then partially abandon them to the street when they become bigger, also believing that castration is cruel...they were very tragic, but friendly beasts.
So the journey still wasn't over yet! We grabbed a taxi to take us to a bus company that was listed in the Lonely Planet as going to San Pedro de Atacama...we were in luck...having 15 minutes to spare, this being enough time to individually appreciate how skanky we were in the bus terminal toilets...nice.
Our next bus was much more comfy than the rest, which was typical because it was the shortest journey of the whole mission!
We passed though some Chilean desert...
And finally about an hour and a half later we arrived at San Pedro de Atacama.
So that makes 12 + 6 + 2 + 12 + 1.5 ... a mind numbing 33 and a half hours of pretty much consecutive buses. What a hilarious mission!
1 comment:
Well done, just cannot imagine it, although Berry's comes close on a Friday night. 33 hours strikes as numbing rather more than the mind.
xx
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