On the trail of the Chinchorro

To explore the area around Arica, we rent a car for two days. The first port of call is a beach, Mirador Caleta Vitor, which Francesca and Max told us about. Apparently they saw whales there. Unfortunately we don't see any whales, but we do see sea lions and fish that are washed up on the shore. Asma and Plaice try to save a few of them and throw them back into the sea.

After a short break between fish carcasses, we continue south. We don't have an exact goal in mind. The nearest town Iquique is 3 hours drive away. We decide to just drive off and see what else we come across on the way. Actually not much, because we are driving through the desert :P We look at a few sculptures of the Chinchorro mummies and stop at a secluded beach. We park the car in the middle of the path - no one will pass here anyway, we think. Wrong thought - 5 minutes later 2 Chileans drive up and want to pass. They are on the way to their boat and ask us if we would like to go on a little boat tour. We are of course happy to accept this offer. When do you ever get a free boat trip? For example in Rhodes ;) We go out into the sea in a nutshell. Pelecho is a surf instructor and organizes special surf trips to remote beaches. He shows us a beautiful beach that can only be reached by boat.

After just 5 minutes on the open water, Pelecho and his friend Pier catch a huge tuna. Then it's Plaice aka "Flat Fish"'s turn to hold the fishing rod - unfortunately without success. We learn that Pier Bucci is a well-known electronic music producer and lived in Berlin for 15 years. He now lives in Costa Rica with his German wife.

We arrange a surfing lesson with Pelecho for Wednesday, because, funnily enough, Pelecho also lives in Villa Frontera, not too far away from our hostel.

On the way back we joke that Francesca and Max will still be in the hostel. To our surprise: they are still there! Apparently they had problems with the papers to take the car across the border into Bolivia and therefore have to stay another night. "Will we ever get out of here?" we think to ourselves :D

We sit outside until 2 a.m. and teach Francesca, Max and Juan Kniffel. We end the evening with a game of dominoes.

The next morning we want to leave at 10 a.m. It's 12 o'clock when we finally set off :P We drive to Putre and stop briefly to watch llamas. Then we continue to Lake Chungará. We notice the height extremely. We are dizzy and feel very weak. We stop briefly to take a few photos when Max and Francesca drive up. What a coincidence! They actually made it out of the hostel :D

We want to have dinner in Putre. Because of the carnival there, all restaurants are closed. Then there's some ice cream :D

We decide to go to the good Italian restaurant in Arica and treat ourselves to delicious pasta. We spend the rest of the evening playing dominoes - who would have thought that :D Since Pancho is already asleep, we play with Juan in a whisper and try to be quiet. Somehow it doesn't work that way with Lissi and we can't stop laughing.