Day 19- Arica, Chile

Waking up after dawn is a great feeling! Being clean is nice too. To start our day on the coastal town of Arica, John and I got some advice from the owner of our hostel. We then went to the main street in the town and exchanged our remaining bolivianos for some Chilean pesos. While there, we stopped and had some omelettes then took a colectivo taxi to the local bus station. While there we bought our tickets from Arica to La Paz. Now, to give a little background on the city, one thing you should know is that Arica has extremely strong UV rays. It is so dry that many of the houses, stores, and buildings are open-air and have whole nice furniture sets and paintings just sitting outside. It is so arid that our hostel owner said it hadn't rained more than .03 inches since he was a little boy. Arica is thus known as one of the "driest inhabited places on Earth"! It also is well known for its great surfing waves, and is the surfing capital of Chile since the 2007 Rip Curl Surf Championships were held there.

Next, we went to the Catedral de San Marcos. It was designed by Gustav Eiffel, the man who designed the Eiffel tower. We walked around inside, interrupting a field trip, and got some photos. We then stepped outside into the Plaza Colón and I really enjoyed the atmosphere. The weather was of course, sunny and beautiful, and there were fountains everywhere. After getting some fresh squeezed juice at a street stall we began to walk uphill towards a large rocky hill/cliff overlooking the whole city. It is known as El Morro, and it had a Chilean flag flying atop of it and a banner saying "Feliz Año 2010!" There was a path leading from the residential streets (filled with turn of the century colorful homes) that lead up to the top of the morro. The path zig-zagged up until it reached many steep, narrow steps. The intense heat made this journey not so fun. Arriving at the top was worth it though because the view was great! You could see the coastline, beaches, downtown, and the dry, rocky mountains. There was also a Jesus statue (which is apparently a popular thing to put on top of hills) as well as a historical museum which contained the old cannons the Chilean army used during their war for independence. As we walked around the perimeter of the cliff enjoying the views, I also appreciated the breeze. As we were leaving we found a man selling popsicles, and I gladly bought one for the walk back into town.

We headed back to Arica Surf House hostel, and decided to do some laundry. We filled up a tub in a back room and handwashed some of our things, hanging them out on a line to dry. Afterwards we went back at the main plaza. There we found an interesting McDonald's called "Auto Mac" that was an outdoor walk up stand. The monetary symbol for pesos is the dollar sign $ and since one USD equals 490 pesos, we saw advertisements that said "Big Mac: $1700", it was pretty funny. After walking down the main street filled with shops, restaurants, and street vendors we went back and got our things ready for the beach!

We decided to walk to a nice beach area known as Playas Corazones, and after a 25 minute stroll we finally arrived! The beach was very wide and had a decent crowd. There was a playground on it, as well as some hotels and snack shops. We set down our towels and then went out into the refreshing water. It felt awesome, and I was excited because it was my first time ever swimming in the Pacific ocean! We went out somewhat deep, and as we were swimming I noticed something large and grayish swim by about ten feet away. I freaked out for a minute thinking it was a shark or a whale or something, so we swam back. About 5 minutes later I saw it again, but this time I realized it was just a sea lion! It was so cute! I was enjoying the ocean, but since John isn't a big ocean lover we went back to the towel and I bought myself a snack and sat down, soaking up the sun. It was great to get a chance to relax since the last few days had been so full of activity!

When it was time to leave I made John find us a cab since I had bad blisters from the wise decision of walking in flip flops. After that, we decided to stroll the lively main street called Calle 21 de Mayo. It has a really fun, beachy, atmosphere so I of course loved it! Filled with many unique shops, street musicians, colorful flowers, and food, it was also a great way to get a feel for the city. While walking I noticed a bunch of teenagers carrying around signs saying "abrazos gratis", meaning "free hugs". I'm not sure what it was for, but for some reason I went up and asked the girl to give me the free hug. You know, just bonding with the Chilean people. Anyways, we then returned to the hostel, showered, and headed out to the other side of town with all the large open air markets and shops. All of the stands are totally packed with the goods for sale, and the walkways down the rows were filled with people. I ended up buying a keychain, a little red pot, a locally made shell necklace, and a lovely purple dress. I was happy because as always, they were all purchased at a great low price! So, there is this energy drink popular in Chile and it's called "cocaina", and John wanted some. Needless to say, it was a little awkward walking up to different shops and asking if they had cocaina- but don't worry, I always made sure I specified it was the drink! After we had our fill of shopping and bartering, we strolled back towards Plaza Colón and then headed towards the walkway that went along the beach. On the way there I started hearing a very weird sound coming from the trees. It honestly sounded like pigs oinking. It was actually coming from these huge crane looking birds that were everywhere. They were splattering giant drops all over the sidewalk too, so we were very cautious! We then sat down to watch the sunset over the ocean, and were entertained by some lively pelicans.

We headed back to the main calle for dinner and chose a place called Cafe del Mar. We assumed from its name "Ocean Cafe" that it would have primarily seafood, but oddly they only had one seafood dish! We sat at a table outside on the street, and after chatting with our waiter, a few stray dogs came up next to me. In Chile they don't seem to have a very good animal control system, because stray dogs are very common. They seem to be all over the place and it is normal and accepted by the locals. These two dogs were dirty and likely had fleas, and they started barking and biting each other. It was dangerously close to my legs and I was getting scared. The waiter tried to shoo them away but at one point just gave up. Oh well- when in Rome...

While finishing up our meal we noticed that some sort of parade was beginning on the street. It was getting dark, and several people walked by chanting with t-shirts and banners saying to re-elect Edoardo Frei for President. It wasn't that interesting at first, but then the musicians came followed by a huge crowd of people singing some song about how great this guy Frei is. It was a little bit comical, but definitely a great thing to witness. After the chorus the flag wavers came, and then a group of dancers in elaborate costumes danced down the street. It felt impromptu because the streets weren't blocked off and people were confused, yet despite that it was a very entertaining political parade. I was glad we had front row seats for it too! With the music and the energy it was really fun and definitely made me feel like I was in a hispanic culture.

El Desfile Politicó

Since nothing else could top that display, we headed back to the surf house for the night. The TV was playing shows in English, I was so excited. After speaking to people in Spanish all day it is nice to just check out and stop trying at the end of the day. As I was falling asleep later on, I heard an odd noise. I was convinced it was cockroaches evilly running around in the walls. There was a cockroach in the shower earlier, so I was on guard. However, it only ended up being the sound of the ice in my cup crackling and melting. It didn't last very long, Arica is so hot.