McDonald's breakfast in our stomachs we went about the business of exchanging the last of our South American money and getting hold of some New Zealand dollars, however, the currency exchange would not accept my Peruvian soles, the only currency I held any substantial amount of (and that was only because we had elected to spend more time in La Paz and travel directly to Arica instead of via Arequipa as we had planned to do). I exchanged the little amounts of othe...

The next morning we awoke and had our cincluded breakfast a very tasty affair of toast, bread and cereal and a small battle over fruit juices - everytime the staff brought out a new jug there was a very evident stiffening of the air followed by a mad dash from almost everyone to retrieve some refreshment.After a quick shower we headed off into town, after first walking in the wrong direction and coming to an abrupt stop in front of a large park that was obviously...

ARICA We were up literally at the crack of dawn - 5:30am, but were fortunate enough to find a taxi waiting at the bottom of the street just asking for 2 backpackers to be taken to the bus station. After some wandering about trying to find our bus company and a bit of a debate on whether there was a departure tax and where it might be paid and then finally where our departure point was we were settled down on the bus, not too shabby by the standards we have becom...

The border crossing into Bolivia was very easy if not somewhat confusing on both sides immigration involved going into the police station first and then into the immigration office before walking up a hill and over the border and doing the same on the other side where the empty bus would meet us.Stamp in passport, bundled back onto the bus we continued our journey to Copacabana (in no way similar to the beach in Rio) and changed buses for the last leg to La Paz t...

PLittle did we know about a bus strike taking place in Cusco barring all public transport traffic into or out of the town, however, the first we learnt of this turn of events was in Cusco checking in to the hostel at 10pm when our bus had pulled outside and woken us up from our slumber. They were quite surprised to have seen us as a number of other buses had had to turn back around to Ollyantambo or worse back to Agues Callientes. To this day I have no idea how w...