Chile -- Part 1 (Arica, El Morro)

We left Lima at noon on Friday. Our flight arrived to Tacna, Peru at about 3pm. The airport in Tacna was....small to say the least. It had 2 gates total. From the airport we took a taxi to the International Bus Terminal which turned out to be the sketchiest bus station I have EVER seen. We were the ONLY foreigners there  and everyone was staring at us (the fact that both of us were fair and light-haired did not help). There was trash piled up everywhere and there were no signs telling us what to do or where to go. We hurridly bought tickets and walked out the doors into a parking lot where men swarmed us yelling "taxi" "Arica" "La Paz", trying to get us to get into their cars. We were wary...how did we know whether these people were licensed and whether they would not just rob us when we got into their car? We walked up to a nice older man who was over by the tour buses and asked him for help. He assured us that any of the cars were safe and helped us find one. 

The process of getting across the border took about 2.5 hours. We drive down the highway out of Tacna and into the desert. Being outside of Lima I could definitely feel a difference. Tacna itself was visibly poorer and more run-down than any places I have seen, and outside of it it was much worse. Out in the desert there were tons of tiny make-shift houses made out of concrete blocks or even just flimsy sheets of woven-together plants. They were tiny and clearly they had no access to running water, electricity, or services of any kind. It is easy in Lima to forget that Peru is indeed a developing country, but once you travel outside of it you see the reality.

When we reached the border crossing we had to get out of the car, go into the building on the Peruvian side, and show our passports and Peruvian Immigration Card. Then we went into another building right on the border and were issued our Chilean visas. Then we got back into the car and the driver took us to Arica. On the Chilean side of the border there were no cinder-block houses dotting the desert. I wonder why...I know Chile is much more developed but there is still poverty. But maybe just not as extreme as Peru? 

When we arrived to the bus station in Arica, our driver took pity on us foreigners and drive me and Ane Kine to a cheap hostel in the center of the city that he knew of. It was not the nicest place ever but it did the job:

Our room in the hostel

Our one main concern with it was that our door was only locked with a padlock when we left, and when we were sleeping it was only locked with a flimsy bolt. Also we had an open skylight in our room with no glass....just air. But we had no problems during our stay and the street we were on was pretty safe so it all turned out fine. We just told ourselves that it was all part of the experience.

obviously highly secure...

 The next morning we ventured out and attempted to figure out the money system. In Chile, the money is called pesos and it is VERY CONFUSING. To give you an idea: $10 US Dollars = 4,992.51 Chilean Pesos (which is equal to 27.74 Peruvian Soles). So when you buy things in Chile, you feel like you are spending a lot of money because the prices in stores and restaurants are in the thousands. For example, a sandwich would cost 2,500 Chilean Pesos. Our hostel cost 6,000 pesos per person a night. IT WAS VERY CONFUSING.

After a trip to the grocery store to buy yogurt and bread for breakfast, we headed down to the plaza to eat breakfast. The weather was so nice...sunny, 60's, slight breeze. Such a nice change from the cold, wet, and cloudy weather in Lima!

Downtown Arica - some kids were performing traditional dances in the square

After eating, we decided to explore the city a little, and decided to start with a walk down to the oceanfront and towards the conspicuous rock that loomed over the city, called "El Morro". Arica actually used to be a part of Peru, until Chile tool it from Peru in the War of the Pacific in 1880. El Morro was the last bulwark of the Peruvian troops until it was captured in 1880 by the Chileans.

"El Morro" - a hill that overlooks Arica and the ocean

"El Morro"

Then we walked down to the waterfront to see the ocean. There were concrete breakers all along the coast to help keep the waves back. Some of them had cool art painted on them!

Me down on the waterfront

 After the beach we decided to try and find a way up to the top El Morro. After a bit of wandering we found a street that led right up to the back of it where the path up was. It was a surprise to have a hill in a city after Lima, which is completely flat.

Street that went up to the path to climb "El Morro"

We found the old Peruvian consulate on the road up to El Morro. It was painted a beautiful light blue (CAROLINA BLUE!) and had a big Peruvian flag on top.

Historic Peruvian consulate

 There were a lot of buildings on this street (and in Arica in general) that clearly used to be very nice but that have fallen into disrepair. For example the one below had beautiful balconies and a wooden door:

Look at the cool balconies and the wooden door! This is on the street up to El Morro.

At the base of El Morro just before the path up there was a shrine dedicated to the "Heroes of El Morro" that had been created in 1947....I think it was for the Chilean soldiers that captured the hill from Peru?

A shrine at the base of El Morro on the path up the hill dedicated to the "heroes of El Morro".  

The path up El Morro was VERY steep and covered in sand which made it VERY slippery... But the views were worth it.

the path up El Morro...it was very steep and very slippery with sand.

Halfway up the hill! view of Arica and another hill with a giant statue of Jesus.

View of Arica from the top of El Morro

 Finally at the top! Beautiful views of the city and ocean!!

View of Arica from the top of El Morro

Me and Ane Kine on top of El Morro...we asked the guy to take a picture of us AND the background but it seems we just got a close up of just us haha. Notice the matching sunglasses...totally unintentional. We both brought them independently to Peru....weird.

Me at the top of El Morro overlooking Arica....don't fall!


There was a HUGE Chilean flag at the top and a museum dedicated to the War (that we didn't go in because it was not free). Clearly this is a nationalistic symbol for Chile.

HUGE Chilean flag on top of El Morro and some old cannons. 

We had great views of the Pacific Ocean and the coast:

View of the Pacific Ocean from on top of El Morro! So beautiful!

It was very windy...clearly

There was also a HUGE statue of Jesus on the top. He was posed in a way that made it look like he was dancing and I had to stop myself from taking a matching dancing picture:

There was also a GIANT statue of Jesus on top of El Morro...it kind of looks like he is dancing

Look who we found on the way back down:

There was a cute cat sitting in the window staring at us as we walked by!

Weird drug-store find of the day: "Beauty Drink" that supposedly helps your skin or your silhouette...but we looked at the ingredients and it was basically just flavored water.

"Guapa Beauty Drink" for skin and silhouette -- found in a drug store in Arica. It was just water. 

We had dinner at a Chinese restaurant and tried a Chilean soda, Kem. It was delicious and they even made us vegetarian food specially (it was not on the menu).

Kem and Chifa (Chinese)

Nothing much to update but I wanted to update so you will not think I am dead.

To celebrate being done with all our tests till midterms in 2 weeks, Ane Kine and I went to Miraflores to eat. Miraflores is one of the artsy, rich districts of Lima and it has lots of really cool restaurants with great food. We went to a salad place called "Design Your Salad"....we didn't design a salad but just bought the vegetarian one on the menu which was really good! The whole place had a distinctly Carrboro feel.

Here are some pictures:

After eating the salad we were feeling a little too healthy so we went to have churros at Manolo, a restaurant famous for its churros and ice cream. Somehow I had managed to be in Lima for over a month without eating a churro but I finally changed that.  I got a dulce de leche stuffed churro and it was DELICIOUS. My life is changed forever. JUST LOOK AT THEM:

Sorry I haven't been posting much. This past week and this coming week I have several tests that I am studying for. But next weekend Ane Kine and I are going to Chile so there will be some good pictures from that!!

EARTHQUAKE

Also there was an earthquake today south of Lima of a magnitude 6.6 -6.8. Apparently you could feel it here but I didn't..... Ane Kine texted me and was like "DID YOU FEEL IT??" and I was like, did I feel what?? Apparently in her class the projector and screen started shaking and everything for about 50 seconds! 

My first test aka I am a huge nerd

I had my first test in Peru last Thursday and it was in my History of Peru class. This type of test is called a "control de lectura" and most classes have them. It is basically a reading test where you have to know what the author says about the topic, not what you yourself think (which is hard for me cause as you all know I have many opinions). For this one, we had 300 pages out of a book about the Inca state, the conquest, and Spanish colonialism. It was a LOT of information to know! For the test we had 2 sections, each with 2 questions. For each section we had to pick one question and answer it in essay form.

The questions I picked were:

1) Based on the author's analysis, how did the Inca state organize the control over the Huarochirí lands and how did the local wak'as and Huarochirí special cultural characteristics have an impact on the special way the Incas organized these territories. Illustrate with examples from the reading.

2) Who were the "brokers" in colonial Andean society, and how did they relate to both Spaniards and the Andean population during the whole colonial period? Identify the benefits and problems that these people had to deal with in Huarochirí, giving specific examples and analyzing their situation.

We only had 2 hours to do this which was definitely not enough time. I was rushed and I definitely could have included more detail had we had more time.


Today before he handed the tests back, the professor made this whole speech about how a lot of people did very badly on the exam and only a few did really well. I hate it when professors do that I always get so nervous. And of course my test was one of the last to be handed back so I just got more and more nervous.

BUT it all worked out in the end because I got a 20 (which is the highest you can get because the Peruvian grading system is 1-20)!!!!!!! And I got the highest grade in the class!!!! I am such a nerd because I have literally been happy all day just because of this. Please excuse my obvious nerd status right now.

I want to live at Mistura

Last Friday I went to Mistura, the largest food festival in Latin America which is fortunately held right here in Lima! I went with several friends from all over -- Norway, France, USA, Mexico, and Peru -- so we were definitely an international group! Getting there was the hardest part -- there were special buses running there BUT they were all full....so the 6 of us piled into a taxi (after several attempts to get other taxis to take us but being denied because we were so many). I somehow ended up sitting on a lap, even though I am the tallest girl, so I spent the entire ride down to the beach bent in half....

Mistura is divided up into different "mundos" (worlds) -- they represent all the parts of Peru, as well as having an "oriental" world, a chocolate world, and a coffee world. There is also a whole section of stalls where people are selling their products, but also giving out a ton of free samples. This picture is of "Mundo Andino" (Andean world) which has food from the Andes, including Cuy (guinea pig)!!

I was looking forward to seeing cuy in person and Mistura did not disappoint...there were tons of places selling it! This place decided to put a stuffed guinea pig next to the cooked one so I just had to take a picuture. There was also a person in a cuy costume (kind of like basketball mascot costumes except a guinea pig).

Although I did not personally try it, the other people in my group bought cuy and ate it. You can't really see it in this picture but the foot still had the toes on it....

Ane Kine's first bite of cuy! 

This section was meat....just meat. Here are some alpacas being cooked.

closer up picture of the alpacas.

and this is just rows of pork...

This was a case just full of popsicles! They were expensive though so I didn't try one.

I FOUND VEGETARIAN FOOD! I don't know what the real name for this was but it was DELICIOUS. The one on the left is a pepper stuffed with some sort of sauce and with cheese baked over it. And the one on the right is a "potato cake" filled with egg and cheese.

This was in the free samples section and was a stall of just different salsas. The man working told us to try the spiciest one so we did....it was pretty hot but I survived.

This stall only sold olives. And they were delicious.

FINALLY I tried coca. This place was all things coca - coca pisco, coca desserts, plain coca leaves, you name it. I had the coca pisco and some sort of chocolate coca dessert thing.

These were supposed to be fruit flavored but the one I tried just tasted like grape cough syrup :(

This was the weirdest/best thing ever. This stall sold potatoes and potato bread and they had made a man out of potato bread! The man pictured was like brushing the potato man for some reason...he also told us the potato man's name but I don't remember it.

Of course we had to take a picture with the potato man. Right before we were going to take the picture the stall owner handed Ane Kine a bag of potatoes which is why we look slightly confused. 

There were different dance groups throughout the day that would go around the whole festival. This one is from the Amazon.

"Higher up in the mountains better grows the coffee berry" -- I love it when translations are just slightly off

This place had THE BEST frappecinos. We tried one as a sample but then couldn't resist...they were SO GOOD. 

cases of chocolate in chocolate world

the brazilian embassy had a stall in chocolate world with cool chocolate sculptures. Me and Ane Kine also got free ceramic to go mugs from here that say I love chocolate in portuguese with the brazilian flag.

case full of chocolate desserts

Chocolate sushi!!

cool chocolate art

Dancers and musicians, this time from the Andes. 

This is "queso helado" (cheese ice cream). It basically tasted like liquified cheesecake....

In true peruvian tradition, there was a whole world dedicated to taverns and bars

Here is a picture of me having my picture taken with my free brazilian mug...I don't know why this picture was taken but it is funny so I kept it.

Me and Ane Kine featuring Idunn and Tor's backsides (they said that they were going to ruin our picture but I think it turned out funny)

Me and Ane Kine overlooking the beach and Mistura

view of mistura

our last look at mistura and the beach