Last day in Arica

Tomorrow we have a 1:00 pm bus that will fly us to Arequipa, Perú. Including a border customs check that will probably take about two hours, it should be about ten hours on the road. Which of course puts us into town pretty late. Gonna be a LONG one tomorrow. But whatever, no pain no gain. Tonight we're going to hang out downtown after packing up and have a relatively crazy night. No real reason to get up early tomorrow. Just to eat and walk to the bus station, then hurry up and wait for ten hours.
Yesterday was a day to remember. The keyboard I'm on REALLY sucks, so I'll make it brief. After a restful all-night bus from San Pedro, we got to the pyramid-shaped bus station and consulted the city map and Lonely Planet book to find a good hostal. Showers were badly needed. We walked pretty far in the noon heat with our heavy bags to a hostal that doesn't exist, then found another one nearby for pretty cheap and settled in. After eating the BEST seafood empanadas in the known universe, we took our first ciesta. The beaches in this city are all covered in giant wave-breaking concrete structures, so we walked all over looking for a good one. Finally, we (apparently) "snuck" into a yacht club where they had a cool little lagoon and swam there. There was a giant open gate into this unguarded relaxed area, so we just strolled in. But when we walked out, it was apparent that it was a members-only place and we got some intense looks. Pretty funny. Then back to the hostal for showers (thank god) and the second ciesta. Then we were hungry again, so off to buy some food and some new shorts for Andy, as his old ones were all messed up. We saw great stuff and met some cool folks. We're practically celebrities here and I just eat it up. Really fun. For dinner, we cooked up some delicious sausage and bread with sauce, then split a big box of wine and took off again. I'm sure my grandparents won't like to hear it, but hey, I'm on vacation. By this point, we were quite hammered and every little thing became infinitely more fun. First, we watched some Aricano rappers at a big outdoor plaza and did a bunch of somersaults and stuff in the soft grass. Then we relocated to another part of the city and opened up the bottle of Pisco (Chilean grape liquor). Eventually, we decided that we wanted more water and some beer, so we went into Schop Dog, a Chilean bar and grille. We split a giant tall thing filled with beer called a girafa (the giraffe) and ate a big basket of fries while we watched some soccer. Afterward, we found a nice dark and quiet spot to hang out in and finish the Pisco. There was a bum passed out sleeping on the ground next to us the whole time and he never once woke up. At about three in the morning, we finally made it back to Residencial Real and went off to sleep. What a great one.

More as it comes, I'm sick of typing. THanks for reading.

Con gusto,
Brad