La Paz - Arica

I am now relaxing in the nice beach front hostel in Arica enjoying the calm quiet and warm sea breeze, this morning however was a completely different story.  I got on the plane to La Paz full of anxiety and fear that I'd get completely lost and wouldn't be able to find anyone that spoke English, but when I got off at La Paz at 05:35am a Bolivian chef from New York who was on the same flight as me offered to take me to the bus terminal and order the ticket for me.  It's so amazing when you meet truly selfless and nice people like that when youre travelling.

Well anyway me and Luiz shared a taxi with his family and he helped me book a ticket to Arica which cost $10 (£6) haha that's a pretty awesome deal for so great a distance!

I lounged about in the bus terminal till the call for my bus came, I then boarded and began my long 10 hour journey to Arica.  Though bus journeys often get a bad rep by a lot of travellers I have to say that this bus journey was particularly nice, even though I don't speak a word of Spanish and it lasted 19 hours!

As I was driven through La Paz I was presented with amazing and sometimes weird and unpleasant sights such as the ferociously brave jay walking of children in the middle of main roads, guys pissing on bus shelters 10 feet away from policemen, the huge population of stray dogs prowling the streets and a number of other crazy things.  The highlight was seeing the whole of La Paz from the valley rim and seeing all of the buildings glimmering in the sunlight as the clouds began to creep in from the mountains.  I actually shouted "wow" at that view, not something that I regularly do, so now you know how spectacular it was haha.  Unfortunately I couldnt get any pictures because the sun was too bright and the camera couldnt take it.  I have to admit I was having difficulties breathing with the high altitude, but a couple cups or coca tea sorted me out.

We then drove on and on through the Andes and deserts for 9 hours.  I got some great pictures however the bloody camera has included the time and date in the bottom right hand corner of every photo in big red letters and I don't know how to get rid of it!  But still they look good.

Arica is quite nice, the hostel is filled with nice people from all over e.g.; Brazil, France, Denmark etc.  Had my first legal drink since I left New Zealand so that was rather satisfying.  

Tomorrow I'm going to be observing the earthquake damage from the M8.2 April 1st earthquake that struck the Chilean coast.  Im expecting the damage in Arica to not be as major as in Iquique for example, as the epicentre was 30 miles southwest of Iquique.  But still, I will be hunting for some damaged buildings tomorrow and will hopefully (sounds horrible to wish someones house damaged) get some good pictures for the report.  Wish me luck!