- How to get there: Arica is the city that borders with Peru, you can get to Arica from many places on a single bus journey. We had to break it into two because there was no space on the buses leaving from Caldera, so we did Caldera - Antofagasta. In Antofagasta there are lots of buses going to Arica.
- Arriving to Arica: The national bus station and the international one are right next to each other, but locals don't recommend staying in that area since it could be a little dangerous. Taxis shouldn't charge you over 2.500 CLP to go into the centre.
Arica is a big city, though at first it might not look like one. However, there is not much to do in Arica apart from great places for shopping cheap clothes and artisan goods and delicious street food. There is a small mountain (or big hill) with a flag at the top of it that people keep on "trekking" to see a panoramic view of the city. It isn't really much of a trek, exhausting 15 really steep minutes, that's all. The view at the top is a quite impressive view of the city. Arica is not an ugly city, and it has a unique feeling that makes it different from the rest of Chile. At the top there's not only a proud Chilean flag, there's also a statue of Jesus and a museum dedicated to the army which has an entry fee of 1.000 CLP for adults.
After walking back down we had a stroll around the city, having a look at the narrow shopping centres and at the street stands. We entered a market that had lots of bars that exclusively sold fruit juices. We sat in one to have a couple of them and received two jugs of juice (yes, jugs) for 3.000CLP the milk one and 2.500CLP the water one.
We had lunch at a street stand when we went back to the bus station to get tickets to go to Peru. The food was simply amazing: chicken, chips (fries) and salad with spicy sauce for 1.500 CLP each. Oh, and we are going to Bolivia.
No comments:
Post a Comment