Arica

Arica has been very nice. This popular beach town in Northern Chile has been perfect for relaxing over the last few days. I even tried some body boarding, the locals laughed at me because I had a crappy board (borrowed from the hostel), no wetsuit and no fins (flippers).

I found a perfect spot to take a photo of the sunset and then somehow managed to miss it three nights in a row. I was on my way back from the supermarket tonight when I saw that the sun was nearly down, practically ran to the beach and missed it by a matter of minutes.

There´s a wave here called El Gringo. Gringo is the word they use here for Americans or just blonde-haired-light-skinned people in general. Tourists. It was apparently named this because the gringos used to come here just to surf it, and they were the only ones. Today I saw the place where they´re setting up for a competition and there were plenty of locals surfing it. The wave is huge and breaks right onto the rocks, so lots of people have been injured, but there were no problems today. It was great to watch.

Tomorrow at 10am I board a bus for Santiago. It will take 28 hours. I´m really not looking forward to it but the flights were just too expensive. I asked the lady if they would give me food on the bus, and after a long hesitation she said yes. It didn´t give me much confidence in the food I´m going to receive, so I´ve packed a hefty supply of snacks, and I´ll load up on breakfast tomorrow morning - It´s all you can eat at this particular hostel.