Chile!!!!!

This weekend Lucia and I traveled to Chile. I had a couple days off from work in honor of Holy Week, so I thought I would take advantage of it to do a little traveling. Plus, I needed to travel outside the country to obtain my work visa anyway so I used the two days off to fulfill this function.

I chose Chile based on convenience and price. It was the fastest and cheapest option of any foreign excursion, and based on my current salary those two factors are very important. Cruz Del Sur, a great bus service here in Peru, took Lucia and I to the Southern-most city in Peru, Tacna. I bought a round-trip ticket for about $75, which, included breakfast, dinner, and great service for a 20-hour bus ride. And my favorite part of the bus ride – the movies – we watched four movies on the way to Tacna. Enemy of the State, Shooter, Underclassman, and The Punisher. What a line-up of movies – Will Smith, Mark Walberg, Nick Cannon, and some dude that played the Punisher – unforgettable. They were so unforgettable that we actually watched The Punisher twice. I know what you’re thinking – LUCKY. Exactly. By the way, they were dubbed in Spanish... even better!

Wait, there’s another perk when riding this bus – Bingo! If you were lucky enough to win the bus bingo game then you would receive your ride free of charge. However, Lucia and I weren’t paying attention while the attendant was reading the instructions, so we inadvertently shouted “BINGO” when I thought I had won. But, if we had listened at the beginning we would have known that you don’t win unless your whole card has been called – yes, about 30 minutes of B25, I38, N44, G73, O22 before someone could shout a legitimate ‘Bingo’.


We arrived to Tacna not knowing exactly how we were to cross the border into Chile. I met two surfers from New Zealand who were also in the same predicament. They said they were going to take the train, but it was going to be a slow ride, probably another 3 hours. I told them maybe, but maybe not. Surprisingly, we didn’t have to walk very far before 12 guys approached us saying “Arica, Arica, Arica, Aricaaaaaaaa”. Okay, I guess they can take us to Arica, Chile. We talked to one of the guys for a while and he convinced us that it was a safe ride to Arica… he would even take us to our hotel. We made the deal, paid the money, signed a form and we were off to Arica in a very appropriate ride - an early 90’s, grey Ford Taurus. I started to have flashbacks of sophomore year in High School driving around South Kansas City in Jerry Miller’s Taurus – sweet. I think the only difference between then and now was the music… Smashing Pumpkins and Dave Mathews versus Peruvian Reggae Tone and Salsa… hmmm.


We crossed the border quite smoothly; I think the baggage check guys might have been taking their mid-morning nap because they barely even noticed us as we walked through the metal detectors with all of our bags. We arrived to Arica, formerly part of Peru, but taken by Chile a little over 100 years ago, and we noticed that nothing is open. It was similar to a ghost town. It looked like the only thing that was open was a small restaurant near the beach and McDonalds. Since I feel nauseous every time I eat McDonalds (no offense to 99% of my friends) we chose the Chilean restaurant. We took advantage of the calm atmosphere and laid around the beach for a while, walked a lot, and took pictures of the war monuments placed all over the small city.

The following day we woke up early knowing that we had to go back to Peru in the late afternoon. We decided that the huge cliff that we noticed the previous day needed to be hiked. After a jumping a few fences and climbing through some make-shift gates we found the route to the top. It took a while, but we managed to hike up the side of the big hill/small mountain until we reached the peak. Supposedly, as legend has it, a Peruvian soldier, riding his horse, was chased by Chilean soldiers up this same hill carrying the Peruvian flag. He planted the flag on top of the hill/mountain before he was forced to jump off the cliff, along with his horse, committing suicide. Today, in that same place stands a Chilean flag that looks over all of Arica… along with a huge statue of Jesus. Under the statue is a plaque that reads – “Por la razon o la fuerza”. (for the reason or the force). Sounds like something Jesus would say for sure.

You can also find a small museum at the top of this cliff, who knew? You can check out the pictures to see some of the museum, but there was one interesting piece that I would like to share. The museum displayed a copy of the Chilean war campaign to occupy Lima.
The last part, under strategies and objectives it reads – “Ocupar Capital para imponer la paz”. Occupy the capital, Lima, to push (or impose) the peace. I was not proud when I immediately associated this logic to the American military philosophy in the previous years.

Anyway, unfortunately I have to cut this story short (it’s too long anyway)… TO BE CONTINUED MAÑANA. I love you…….

pictures - http://picasaweb.google.com/bjmyp6

-bjm