¡Hola!

Well, leaving Bolivia was very sad, but the views on route to Arica more than made up for it, as the eight-hour bus journey weaved its way through a handful of huge snow-capped volcanoes, including Parinacotaand Pomerape, before dropping down thousands of feet to the desert-fringed beaches of the Pacific.I realised I had descended from 6088m to 0m in less than 24 hours; shouldn't my head have exploded or something?

Arriving in Arica was very weird.Chile is a fully developed, first-world country, and the abundance of big American cars and white people seemed scary at first.People on the streets seemed to be walking and driving about aggressively, and Arica seemed like a s***-hole, as if no one cared about it.I quickly realised that I was wrong about the Chileans, but I wasn't wrong about Arica, which had very few redeeming features.The beach was a kind of grey colour and full of car tyres and plastic bags, and the town centre just reminded me of any provincial town centre in the UK, with its stupid townies and chain stores.The prices too were a shocker too, but that was inevitable coming from the cheapest country in South America to one of the most expensive.I stayed in a great hostel though - a Kiwi-run place called Sunny Days - and I met up with a few people there to hang about with: a pair of American sisters, who were nice enough, and probably the most annoying Scotsman I've ever met... and as you can imagine, he is up against some pretty stiff competition.Anyhoo, I basically occupied myself with adjusting to the new culture and currency, and caught up with blogging the last few days in Bolivia.I stayed in Arica for two nights, before catching an early morning bus to the much larger city of Iquique.

Iquique was a total breath of fresh air: a really substantial, bright and colourful, booming city jutting out into the bright blue surf of the Pacific.The bus journey into Iquique was amazing, as the road snaked its way down the side of a 600m-high sand dune into the hustle and bustle of the city streets.I was to have a much more impressive experience of this same descent though just a few hours later, since there was only really one reason why I was in Iquique - to paraglide.Due to the layout of the city, the dry climate, and its proximity to the desert and the sand dunes, Iquique is arguably the best location in Latin America for paragliding.It never rains and thermals rise from the city 365 days per year - you only have to watch the vultures circling to spot where they are.Iquique also has several long beaches, making ideal landing spots to aim for after gliding over the city and the beachfront skyscrapers.I went with an excellent operator called Altazor, run by a Swiss guy, Philip, and a Finnish guy, Yosef (I think); both were really genuine and great fun to hang out with.Needless to say, I loved the paraglide and I could see how it could become addictive; I had a smile on my face the whole time.Check out the photos and video.

I spent the rest of the day wandering around the very pretty but faded colonial city centre and the beach-front, and generally freeloading wi-fi and bag storage from a really friendly hostel, called Hostel Backpackers Iquique.I went out to eat a lonely but very delicious meal of ceviche (lemon-cured raw fish) and local grilled fish-of-the-day, before jumping on a night bus east to San Pedro de Atacama, near to the Bolivian border.

R

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