La Paz, Arica, Tacna, Arequipa

30.05.-01.06.: See Title


On Tuesday, 31st of May, we arrived in Arequipa, Peru, by way of Arica, Chile and the Peruvian border town of Tacna.


The reason we took the detour through Chile are sometimes violent protests in the region around Puno, Peru, all the way down the coast of Lago Titicaca to the Bolivian border. The protests are aimed at a multinational company which wants to mine silver in the mountains on the Bolivian side of the lake, or more precisely, against the Peruvian and Bolivian governments for giving the company the needed concessions. The farmers fear environmental damage to the region, and are expressing this fear by 300km of roadblocks to prevent people from crossing the border. Many people are said to be trapped there, unable to get out on either side. We have also heard of the protests sometimes turning into mobs, destroying property and threatening people, preferentially Gringos. We've heard a first hand report by two German guys in La Paz, whom Yasmin had met earlier in her travels, who had tried to cross by Lake Titicaca -- something the three tourists we met at the Fundacion were still able to do -- but had their boats burnt by a mob before they could get on.


So, to save time and hassle, we decided on a nice and quiet little vacation in Chile. The spontaneousness of the decision meant we lost some freshly bought food to the rigourous Chilean border controls. Do not attempt to smuggle anything over that border unless you are prepared to pay a steep price: someone had to pay 300$ for forgetting to declare an apple. The controls also delayed our arrival to Arica from 7:30pm to 11. This had us checking in at a dingy hostel at the terminal for 10 000 Chilean Pesos (~7-8€) a double bed, shared bathroom, including some dirt on the sheets and a large amount of hair on one woolen blanket. We decided the time had come to break out our thin cotton sleeping bags bought to keep filthy bedsheets from touching us (recommended for any traveller: they are cheap, small and light -- smaller and lighter in silk, but more expensive, of course -- and many hostels don't allow real sleeping bags in their beds, but these don't qualifiy. Also, bedbugs don't nest there, since they are too thin for their taste, which really reassured us, as Doro had some bugbites of unknown origin that night.


The next morning, we gave our best effort to spend the rest of the chilean money on junk food and drinks, after getting the bus ticket to Tacna for 1500 Pesos + terminal tax.


Tacna is a nice town with a pretty central plaza, which we got to see because it also has an amazing amount of malfunctioning ATMs (4 of the 6 machines we saw).


The trip to Arequipa was lenghty, and the bus spat us out at the terminal, 4km from the city center, after dark. Because guidebooks warn about the crime here, we took a taxi  for the first time in SA. The driver told us that the two cheap hostels in our guidebook where closed -- this may or may not be true -- and offered to show us a cheap hotel he knew of, Hotel Yaravi, where he negotiated us a price of 40Soles, ~10€, for a double bedroom with private bath and "hot" (not quite ice cold) showers.


This time, the room really was clean, and the mattress comfortably firm, although today, after paying for another night here, we saw a "Grand Hostal" offering doubles for 15S, or not quite 4€. Both lodgings are on Calle Alvarez Thomas, on blocks 5 and 4, respectively.


Today (well, yesterday by now) was spent gathering information on and provisions for our trip into the Colca Canyon, at 3 191m the worlds second deepest. We also found an excellent vegetarian restaurant on Calle Jerusalén, between Morán and Mercadores (plus or minus one block). Definetely check it out if your're ever in Arequipa. It's 6S for the menu ejecutivo with three courses including two drinks, both of us were stuffed.


Tomorrow, we'll go to Cabanaconde, for 2-3 days of trekking the Colca. Food, water purifier ans a map ( looking suspiciously as if made with the Windows 95 version of Paint, including these old grey-crosses-on-white patterns) are packed.