Friday 12th March 2010 We arrived in Arica at around 6pm after a four and a half hour bus journey from Iquique. Once we had collected our luggage we went to book our tickets for Sunday to get to La Paz in Bolivia which after working out which counter we needed to be at turned out to be reasonably easy. After we had got our tickets we got taxi to the hostel which was called surfside backpackers which we presumed therefore it would be on the beach but no it was a...

Iquique- A Coastal city in North Chile and our next destination! Wednesday 10th March 2010, Iquique Well after our very long 17 hour bus journey from La Serena we eventually arrived in Iquique at around 4:30pm!! God were we glad to get off that bus!After buying tickets at the bus station for our next leg we jumped in a taxi and off we went to our hostel. The taxi man talked non-stop all the way to the hostel, we just wished we could understand what he was say...

Monday 8th March 2010 We arrived in Le Serena at around 16.30pm before going to found our hostel we decided to buy tickets for our next destination as we wanted to get the overnight bus tomorrow night. This turned out to be a bit more difficult than the first time but we got there in the end. From the station the hostel El Punto was only 10 minute walk away and we managed to find it very easily.The hostel was very nice and felt very Spanish even though it is Ge...

Santiago the city of stray dogs and pashing couple (They really are not shy about showing affection here!!) for us was not really about lots of sight seeing but more to do with soaking up the local café culture, people watching, trying to learn Spanish very quickly and taking it all in!! We had been warned before we left for South America that if we didn´t speak Spanish we would struggle but we just thought they were bluffing and that most people would speak a...