Before I go on to part 2 of our trip I need to show a picture or two of the central plaza in Cusco. It was the main section of town that had all the restaurants, hotels, churches etc. For being winter time it was surprisingly green:
After 4 days in Cusco we decided it was time to move on to another city. We heard of this nice little beach town, Arica, just over the border in Chile. We found out it was an 18 hour bus ride but this didn’t deter us (me). Even though Sarah is the world traveler this was my first trip out of the country so I wanted to get as many stamps on my passport as possible. We had some time to kill before we left so we did some last minute shopping. We ended up getting a cool hand painted plate by the guy below. He wanted 20 soles… I told him 15 soles… he came back with 18 soles… I agreed but told him we were going to take his photo… he agreed.
We also got a cool battle horn. It was a real horn but when someone blew into it a sound came out as if you were calling your buddies into battle. It looked something like this:
The bus left Cusco at 2:30PM and we started driving south. Overall the bus ride was uneventful. We passed through Puno, Peru which is on the shores of Lake Titicaca. However we didn’t get there until about 11PM though so we didn’t see anything. About an hour before we got to Puno the bus pulls over and the attendant announces that we have “no more than 10 minutes to go to the bathroom”. Obviously everything is in Spanish so the whole trip I was pretty clue less. I would just look at Sarah and wait for her to translate. Anyways, we get off the bus and we are at an abandoned gas station in the middle of nowhere. There was a shack looking building that had the women’s bathroom so Sarah went off to use it. I didn’t really have to go but thought I would make use of the time relieving myself anyways so I looked around for the Men’s Restroom. I couldn’t see one but noticed all the guys were just lined up facing this concrete wall taking a leak… so I did the same. When we got back to the bus Sarah informed me there was no toilet in the Women’s Restroom – only a hole in the ground. She wasn’t even sure if she aimed correctly because there were no lights. Needless to say the infrastructure in Peru is in need of a little help.
This was typical country side we drove through, at least what we saw until the sun went down:
We finally get to Tacna, Peru the next morning and took a cab across the border into Chile. On the way the cab driver had us fill out the typical immigration forms. We couldn’t bring in any artifacts, animal products (the picture showed eggs and cuts of meat), etc. So we thought we were fine. We passed our bag through the machine and the Immigration Officer asked me something in Spanish. I could tell he was angry but I didn't understand anything so I looked to Sarah with a “please help me” expression. ‘He wants to see what is in the top of your bag’ She told me.
He opened my pack and grabbed the battle horn (note the photo above), then held it up and said “Cuerno” and proceeded to talk to me even more excitedly. It still hadn’t dawned on Sarah or I that this was an ‘animal product’ so we were quite confused. Sarah talked to him a little more and he ran back and got the immigration form I filled out. He told us he was going to fine us $300 dollars US for giving false information. Sarah batted her big beautiful eyes at him and asked if we had to pay it… he gave us a new form and said, “Let’s pretend this never happened.” I can’t blame him.. I’ve fallen for those batting eyes of hers on more than one occasion. Just kidding.. well all that happened but the batting of Sarah's eyes. The officer ended up being nice to us but he took the horn and made me sign this form:
We get to the bus station in Arica and Sarah needed to use the bathroom. We go to the bathrooms and realize we don’t have any money to pay for it (most of the public bathrooms in Peru and Chile charged about 30 cents). Then it hits… we have no chilean pesos… we don’t know where we are staying.. and we have no guidebook. We decided to exchange some US dollars for Chileans. We had just enough to get a taxi. The taxi cab driver took us to the main shopping area and we walked around until we found a hostel. Sarah remembered one that was recommended on wiki travel so we went there… “The Hotel Plaza Colon”. The lobby looked pretty nice so I felt okay about it. When we got to the room it was a different story. Here is a photo.. I'll list the issues too:
We found a fingernail in the bed sheets
We found cracker crumbs in the bed sheets
There was make up on my pillow case
There was ample short curly hair on the tile floor
The shower was nasty A
The sewer line for the bathroom below us was vented through our bathroom floor
We found cracker crumbs in the bed sheets
There was make up on my pillow case
There was ample short curly hair on the tile floor
The shower was nasty A
The sewer line for the bathroom below us was vented through our bathroom floor
I think that’s it… We were both grossed out. When we slept that night we put our own sheets on the bed and just left them in the morning. The town itself wasn’t that great either. We were expecting a beach town but we got a port town. It’s a main naval base for Chile as well. Needless to say we were pretty excited to get out of town the next morning. We crossed the border back into Peru uneventfully and headed on our way to Arequipa, Peru. That’s it for now. I’ll finish up the last few days of the trip on the next round.
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