Last night was the start of the great journey towards Peru. we are still travelling with our friends Jo and Mark from Stoke. We left San Pedro at 8.45pm. The next port of call was Arica, a journey which would take 10 1/2 hours. We finally arrived in Arica after a very bumpy journey over mountains and through desert. According to Sig I\'d been a bit grumpy in the night, this I find very hard to believe. Apparently I stole his pillow and he wasn\'t too happy about it. Its strange as I have no recollection. Anyway, we arrived Arica and we were all starving. Its seems that you can\'t get breakfast at 7am in Arica and so it was hot dogs and ham sandwiches all round!!!! Anyway, back to the story.... ....after breakfast it was our task to get over the border and into Peru. I will now quote from the Lonely Planet Guide Book on what to do: \"Chilean Colectivos will take you to the border (Colectivos are a kind of taxi). Give the driver YOUR PASSPORT and he\'ll deal with the formalities\". Now, is it just me or is giving your passport to a man you\'ve only just met and who speaks no English a bit worrying? Well it was to me. Our Lonley Planet Guide Book has been our bible so far and so despite our worries we decided to put our faith in to the mighty book and take our chances. We met a very nice man who led us to where all the colectivos were situated. It looked more like a Vintage car show than a taxi rank. All the cars where huge American Chevy types. We soon realised why. The cars had to be big to fit all the luggage in. There were lots of people carting boxes, suitcases, bags, furniture etc.. over to the cars and lugging them into boots and roof racks. Our 4 backpacks just fit in nicely and then the moment came......the passports where handed over and our driver was off in a flash. We all stood there wondering whether to run after him or not. Sig was nominated as the designated scout and followed the driver over to an office. It turned out to be a very well organised process. All the paperwork was complete for our entry into Peru before we even got there. All we needed now was our passports stamping. We left the taxi rank happy as larry. The first station we came to was the exit point of Chile. In no time at all our passports were stamped and we were back in the wagon and headed for Peru Passport and Immigration. We couldn\'t believe it when we got there. On arrival there were kids selling souvenirs of Peru!!!! Souvenirs!! we didn\'t even have a foot in the door!!! Again our driver did us proud and as soon as our bags were scanned we were on our way. Now this all sounds fine and dandy but I hasten to mention that the entire time we were never too sure how far our colectivo would take us and if we could trust him. The drive out to the border was through miles and miles of just nothin. We saw the odd tree or shrub but apart from that nothing. He could have robbed us all and just left us in the middle of nowhere but the Lonely Planet Guide rang true and did us proud!!! Thank you Lonley Planet. Another great adventure for Sig, Mark, Jo and I.