Arica. Chile. 06.01.15

• 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.

El agujero + Gofio mill. Gran Canaria 16.11.15

Today we woke up and decided to go for a walk to explore Galdar again. This time we headed towards the sea, which led us to a rocky beach called "El agujero". The walk took around 45 minutes, including the time we spent wondering whether we would get anywhere walking that way (even though Yvonne lived in Galdar 20 years she had never been to that beach before).

The way we walked to get there was quiet, there was nearly no one around only banana plantations and small farm houses along a narrow road. After walking a long time under a 35ºC sun, we could finally see the way to the beach, we followed the signs and ended up inside some banana plantations where a worker helped us out to his amusement.

Finally at the beach, we sat down and relaxed for a few minutes to the sound of the waves hitting the rocks and watching the surfers. The small avenue doesn´t have any shops, it all consists on houses very close to the shore and at the beach, there is a cute little sea water pool where you can bathe. The water looks so clean even we had to try it, so we sat down in one of the sides of the pool and left our feet in the water, watching small fish swimming around them.

When it was time to head back we found a sign, and the sign showed us an old aborigine settlement and a graveyard. It is not open to the public since it is very fragile and in its original shape.

We also found a little shop where we got refreshments and again, another archeological site welcomed us to see the remains of an old coastal home. Galdar is full of history!

On our way back we stopped at the gofio* mill in Becerril, where the owner told us everything about the history of the mill: that it is the oldest working mill in the island, that it has 3 metre wide walls because the water "pipes" used to go on top of the mill and how the system has changed from water to fire and now the mill works with electricity. The worker allowed me to go in the mill to take a picture of it and I bought half a kilo of corn gofio which I thoroughly enjoyed.

*Gofio is a powder made of toasted grain (mainly corn or wheat) and it is used in coffee, as a single drink with milk, in biscuits, stews and you can also make a delicious dish with it.