in and had the chance to see many Pre-Incan native artifacts, as well as the world's oldest mummies! Yes, it is true, they are older than the famous ones in Egypt. I had never even heard of these Chilean mummies before, but they were truly unique and amazing to see. I am surprised they are not more famous since they are very well preserved, and the oldest known existing mummies. They were very tiny, almost shrunken looking, and had creepy faces with clay accents. The people wrapped them in tight cloth to mummify them, and then put clay on them to keep the features pronounced. While they were a bit scary looking, it was fascinating to think how long they'd been around. After walking around and seeing our fill of ancient artifacts, we headed back to Calle 21 de Mayo again. Instead of having a real lunch, I persuaded John that we go to a heladería (something America needs to 
pick up on). A heladería is basically just a restaurant, but the menu only consists of amazing and intricate desserts! It is a heavenly idea. We sat down, and the waiter brought us out banana splits. Yes, I ate the whole thing. No, I am not ashamed. Delicioso! We had a bus out of the city at two, and when we got back to the hostel we realized that there was a time change we had not noticed. We thought it was noon, but it was actually 1pm. Good thing we checked! We grabbed our backpacks and cabbed it quickly to the Arica bus station.
Once we were there, I walked up to the office where we had bought our tickets yesterday from the company Trans Salvador. I showed them our receipt, and the woman looked confused. She said the bus was sold out. I was also confused because we had proof of having bought seats. She made some calls and then informed me that they had accidentally sold our seats to someone else. I was furious! I mean, really- enough is enough! I officially hate South American bus companies. I started losing my cool, and yelled at the woman saying that since we bought the tickets first we should get the seats, and the other people should have to wait. For some reason that made no sense to her, so John and I were the ones stuck. I found out that the next bus didn't leave until midnight that
night, and so I demanded a refund. She said no other bus companies were leaving for La Paz sooner than that, and wouldn't refund it. I started getting emotional from all the frustration, and cried in front of her. It was embarrassing, but at least she knew how her horrible business practices made me feel. I should have left to calm down and made John talk, but she spoke no English. I continued arguing with her, and finally just gave in and swapped for the bus leaving at midnight instead of at 2pm. I then told her that since her company had inconvenienced us, they had to pay for John and I to take a cab back to our hostel so we'd have a place to leave our things and spend the day. Apparently customer service isn't the best in Chile. She should have been nicer and gone out of her way to help us since she had ruined things, but no. She didn't even once say she was sorry or apologize. Since she wouldn't help us I went to the other desk for the company, and after some arguing with another lady I finally got my way. John and I left the bus station in a free taxi, but we were so mad! We would now have one less day in La Paz thanks to the company being idiots.
After all the drama, we were back in the central part of town. Curt, the hostel guy, was shocked about what happened and said
we could use the common rooms and showers at the hostel for the rest of the day. At least he was nice! Since we didn't have many things left to do in Arica, we decided to change and head to the beach. On our walk into town we noticed a street light that had an "ultraviolet ray indicator" on it since Arica is so close to the equator. It had 5 levels of strength, and today the light was on orange (the middle one) meaning "high risk". It said for people with pale skin, it is only safe to be exposed to the sun for 17-20 minutes max! Making sure we had sunscreen, we took a small bus down to a different beach than the one from yesterday. It was extremely crowded with people, and the area to swim in was a small inlet of water, almost like a lagoon. There were many rocks in the water, and children were swimming everywhere. It wasn't exactly relaxing, but I was happy to be by the ocean regardless. John and I ventured out into the water, and for some reason it was freezing! The water yesterday had felt great. As we were swimming around, I noticed there were many sharp rocks on the ocean floor. We were getting pushed by t
he undertow and kept hitting our feet on them. At one point, I stepped down and then felt a surge of pain. I thought I had just bruised or scraped the sensitive middle part of my foot on a rock, and so we went back to our towel. I looked at it, and noticed it was very purple and splotchy, and then noticed several long, black, splinter-looking things in my foot. I wasn't sure why it was like that, but I knew that it hurt. After a while we got up to catch the local bus, and I then realized walking was very painful. I had to limp my way to it!
Back at the hostel, Curt took a look at my foot and told me that I had stepped on and been stung
by a sea urchin! He said they leave dark purple or black spikes in your foot if you step on them. He advised that we try to get the spikes out so that walking wouldn't be so painful (the photo is of a sea urchin, I obviously didn't take it though). So, John and I sat down in the common area of the hostel. There were about 5 other people in the room and they witnessed this whole ordeal, which was embarrassing. John took out his head lamp to be able to see where the spikes were in my foot, and then got out some supplies. I saw scissors, needles, and a tweezers and knew I couldn't watch. He began the painful process of cutting open the areas around the spikes, trying to dig them up with a needle to be closer to my skin's surface, and then using tweezers to remove them. After about an hour of me sitting there in pain, crying and making odd noises in front of strangers, only 5/6 of the spikes were removed. The biggest one was very deep in my foot and wasn't coming out. John didn't want to cut a huge slice in my foot, so I resigned myself to the fact that walking was going to be painful for a while.
After that lovely event, John and my g
imp self headed out for dinner. We chose a nice place on the main street with outdoor seating, and our waiter Felipe was very chatty. I decided to get apple juice, but it was just chunky apple slices blended up together. It was odd. Afterward, we decided to do some window shopping and stroll the main street for a final time. I was trying to figure out ways to walk that wouldn't put pressure on the spike- I was only partially successful. We returned again to the hostel, and weren't sure what to do to kill time before our bus left. We ended up watching TV with some New Zealanders in the common room for a while, and then I took a shower. Curt called us a taxi 
to the bus station, and we gave him a few dollars to thank him for letting us stay there that day.
Back at the dreaded bus station, I was surprised that our seat was still ours and hadn't been re-sold again! We boarded the charter bus at midnight, and then for some unknown reason it went about one block away, and then stopped. It stayed idle for an entire hour. I was getting furious again. It didn't help that it was insanely hot on the bus and my window was stuck shut so I couldn't get any breeze. By that point, I had lost all patience. Finally, the bus decided to move. We didn't travel very far, and then we stopped at the Bolivian border. The border crossing was closed for the night, so the bus parked from 4am-8am. This 6 hour journey was now going to take about 11 hours thanks to the bus company being horrible!
(As an update, the sea urchin spike stayed stuck in my foot, partially dissolving until it was close enough to be tweezed out in mid April-- 3.5 months later!)
No comments:
Post a Comment