Day 43: Arica, Chile

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.

Day 28: Crossing the Argentina-Chile border

I took a bus from Mendoza, Argentina, to Santiago, Chile, and it was a wonderful trip. The route is a two lane highway which cuts through the Andes, offering spectacular views throughout. I snapped some pictures with my phone as we went:

The border crossing itself was fairly rigorous, but very structured. It was a far cry from the ramshackle Central American land border crossings I was most accustomed to. Surprisingly, as we went through airport-style security stations, the government seemed to be fairly unconcerned about drugs/weapons, with the majority of their scrutiny going to foreign goods, perishables etc. They really care about that box you check on the customs form asking if you've been to a farm apparently. The bus company representative did a great job of making sure everyone went through all of the right steps in the right order and keeping track of all of us, I felt a little like he was our camp counselor. The customs station itself was dwarfed by the immensity of the mountains surrounding it.

Immediately upon entering Chile, the mining industry is on full display, various operations underway and trucks whizzing by. However, there was one set of turns which there was very little whizzing by going on at, an ascent/descent of a huge cliff they must have been unable to find a way to go through/around, the bus had to painstakingly go through a long series of sharp turns to get down. I noticed that the highway has markers which show you which number curve you are on, I think it started at 30 and went down to 1, probably took at least a minute per curve.
Next stop, Santiago!