Another way of getting to Peru

This morning the manager of my hotel in Arica phoned the Customs (Aduana) office again to confirm that they were not on strike. No problem. So I get to the bus station, go to the ticket counter of the company with buses to Arequipa and ask to buy a ticket. No. The Aduana is on strike. This time I argued: "No, we just talked to them. They're not on strike". "Well, they didn't advise us that they weren't on strike." Duh. Somehow it sounded more like the bus company didn't want to know about the strike being over. So I asked if there was another company that went to Arequipa. No. Then I finally got some useful information: if I went to the international station next door, I could get a colectivo (shared taxi) to Tacna, Peru, just over the border, and then get a bus to Arequipa from there. Lest I sound like a total dunce, I had scoped out the international terminal a couple of days before, saw lots of companies going to Tacna, but none to Arequipa, so I assumed the company I had located in the national terminal was the one to go with (and the day I went there, they did claim to be selling tickets to Arequipa!)

I walked over to the international terminal (which is basically a rough parking lot with a bunch of small offices along one side, and a bit of a free-for-all generally) and was approached by a tout asking "Tacna?" Si, Tacna. He led me to a car, where the driver asked for my passport. I didn't feel entirely right about handing over my passport to someone I just met, but sometimes you need to go with the flow. I watched the guy and he didn't sell my passport to secret agents, just kept on shilling for passengers. Eventually he rounded up five people (for a fairly compact vehicle) and then asked us all for 200 pesos. I wasn't sure what that was for, but everyone else was giving him the money. It turned out to be a fee for a Peruvian immigration form.

Off we go in the direction of Peru. We stop at Chilean immigration, and I get my passport stamped for exit. Then a little further to Peruvian customs and immigration, where I get a Peruvian entry stamp and a 90-day visa. Well, I won't be here that long. I put my luggage through the scanner and was good to go. It takes about half an hour to get to Tacna. I thought I was being let off at the national bus terminal but actually it was the international terminal. Fortunately, as in Arica, they're next door to each other.

I must have looked either lost or just foreign, since a pleasant woman who worked at the information desk came up to me and asked if I needed help. When I explained that I needed a bus to Arequipa she directed me to an agent. This agent asked if I wanted a bus now or later, so I said now. She printed out a ticket for me that said 9.30am, which was confusing, since it was by now just after 11. My mistake. I had forgotten for the moment that Peru is in an earlier time zone, and I didn't know that it doesn't use Daylight Time, so actually it's two hours behind Chile, meaning that it suddenly was now only 9-something. Great--I temporarily get two hours of my life back, making up for a couple of boring meetings or some such.

Eventually I got on my bus to Arequipa, which took us through what must be the bleakest landscape I've ever travelled: more desert-like than anything I'd seen in Chile. This was unending grey plains and hills as far as the eye could see, for hours on end.


As we got closer to Arequipa, the road became more winding and mountainous, which at least added some thrills. It was still hard to believe that a city of 1m people was suddenly going to appear, but it did, and here I am. I haven't seen that much yet. The streets were busy tonight since there's some kind of religious procession going on, with a large effigy being carried through the streets, and men in purple robes.