Arica is a border city near Bolivia and Peru. It does have a little bit of the sketchiness you would associate with a border city, but overall its very nice and has a flourishing non-border scene. It lacks the major tourist attractions and therefore was a nice place to get away from the super saturated tourism of San Pedro. I saw a particularly entertaining hand puppet act for children on the main pedestrian street which had everyone, adults and children, in stitches. I was there on a Saturday, and the scene at night was rowdy and rambunctious. There were lots of places to go and I got a couple of drinks near my hotel but didn't stray too far because it was clearly not the safest place to be drunk and because I had a long journey to Peru the next day.
This church was designed by the same Eiffel who designed the tower.
I had originally been planning to go to Bolivia for a 4-7 days, but when I learned they charge all Americans (and only Americans) $130+ to enter I decided I would rather spend that money in Peru. It just didn't seem right to spend that kind of money just to cross the border into a country I was planning on spending less than a week in. Fortunately, this turn of events led me to the great Machu Picchu.
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