We arrived at around 5.30am in Tacna, a town located in the coastal desert of Peru next to the Chilean border and we straight went to the international bus station (cab, 5 min, S/2.5). What we saw of the town didn't make us regret to not stay to visit! The town looked very poor and messy. We managed to catch a bus to Arica for S/10 each at 6am, however we arrived very late in Tacna due to a national strike of the Chilean customs staff. It took us 45min to arrive at the border and... 7h to cross it! We queued for around 4h and were far from being near the end of the queue when Gosia complained to an official that some people (that probably paid some money to the officers) were skiping the queue, so the guy told us to come at the front of the queue! We then had to wait nearly 30min more as the staff stopped working to discuss the strike with their bosses. What a relief when we finally crossed the border, but we then waited another 1h30 for the other passengers of the bus that were still in the queue. Afterwards the ride to Arica was very quick, only 20min. We liked Arica which is a plaisant town. We did not get to go to the beach as we arrived late in the afternoon but had time to enjoy the nice and lively center of the town. We noticed a big difference between Peru and Chile. Chile is much richer: the people are well dressed, lots of nice personal cars on the road, ....and the prices are much higher! We had troubles to get used to the currency....very strange to buy a menu at McDo for C$5000! Very strange as well when at the cash machine you draw C$20000. Laurence had to buy a new wallet as the huge Chilean notes could not fit in her small one! Having dinner we realised that there is a 2h difference between Peru and Chili so we quickly caught a cab to the airport (C$5000, 20min ride). We arrived at the small airport of Arica at around 11pm with 4h to go before our 2.55am flight to Santiago. There is nothing to do in this airport, the only shop being very small with only expensive chocolates to buy!
