I have wanted to visit these countries, Peru especially, for a long long time. An opportunity finally arose, where I had some time to do a bigger-than-usual travel trip because of a job change, in fact I had just over 9 weeks in total. Of course I wanted to see as much as possible as these opportunities don’t come around so often, so I decided to visit Peru, Bolivia, Chile and then fly to Central America and Cuba after, which I’ll write about separately 🙂 My reasoning for this was because it’s the summer in the Northern Hemisphere, and I didn’t want to spend my whole travel time in the Southern Hemisphere at the high altitudes around the Andes – we barely get a summer in Northern Europe as it is!

So how much time did I have for these three countries? Exactly 3 weeks – arriving into Lima on the 27th July, departing on the 18th August. Now obviously that’s not enough time, but who has enough time these days and I like to push things! But I tried to be sensible and prioritise on Peru, with a few days venturing into West Bolivia and basically using Chile as a way of getting back into Peru, while seeing something on the way – hence “feat. Bolivia & Chile”.

Highlights of the trip:

• Paracas – Islas Ballestas & Natural Reserve, super stunning natural wonders
• Arequipa – Beautiful and relaxed colonial city
• Machu Picchu – Obvious, but do your research before going, I wrote about this specifically in a separate blog 🙂
• Huacachina Oasis – The Peruvian Oasis in Ica, Peru is really a unique site
• La Lucha – Amazing Peruvian sandwich restaurant chain!
• Chicha Morada – Sweet purple corn drink! La Lucha do the best 😉
• Salar de Uyuni, Bolivia – The biggest and highest salt flat in the world is something quite spectacular
• La Paz cable cars – The best public transport in the city, seriously I could have ridden this up and down all day, you get the best views of the city and it’s surroundings and it’s cheap!
• The scenery around the Andes and Atacama – So many volcanos and mountains in a Marsian/Lunar-like landscape
• Alpacas & Llamas! 🦙

Low points of the trip:

• Altitude sickness – Begun in Arequipa and Cusco but mainly Puno, La Paz and Uyuni
• Expensive – These counties were more expensive than I budgeted for and cost tourists more than it should, mostly due to tours (especially Machu Picchu) and transport and restaurants if you’re not very careful
• Temperature – High altitudes = cooler climates, especially in the winter
• Level of English – This isn’t like travelling south east Asia where most people have some level of broken English, aqui es Español o buena suerte! Even on most of the tours!
• Not relaxing – There really was no relaxing feeling along this journey for me except at the end when I decided to stay 3 days in Arequipa rather than go hiking in Huaraz. But this is an adventure trip, especially if you squeeze it in 3 weeks as I did – so many overnight buses!

So how much did it all cost? The Peru costing has the most accurate average, as we were only in Bolivia for 2 full days and Chile for 1 full day, so therefore they are going to have a higher cost due to tours and getting in and out without much time spent in between. I was told daily spending averages in Peru will be around $30-$40 a day, and as you’ll see that is just way too low, and this was even done as a budget trip – being super tight at restaurants, tours and accommodation.

To get to such low levels of spending you’d have to stay in the cheapest hostels or Couchsurf and do basically no tours, especially the dollar haemorrhaging Machu Picchu. However, this will then reduce your comfort quite significantly, which is not something to easily give up when taking so many sleeper buses and being constantly cold at night.

• Peru – £886 over 19 days = £47 per day
• Bolivia – £113 over 2-3 days = £57 per day
• Chile – £69 over the 1-2 days
• Total – £1,068 over 22 days = £49 per day

Travelling this part of the world offers a lot; getting to experience incredible scenery, wildlife, history and culture. Just bear in mind that it’s really an adventure trip, and best done as a dedicated trip and thus packing the right gear to make things as comfortable as possible. I really hope this blog helps, even a little bit, y buen viaje amigos!

Lima

Hola Lima!! ✈️ 🇵🇪

First thing’s first – there are multiple working ATMs in the baggage claim area of the airport as well as money exchange, not surprising in one of the main airports in South America but it’s good to know. I got a hotel pickup arranged for S/.60/£15 to Miraflores and my friend used “Taxi Green” from the airport for about the same price so this is what you should be paying to this area of the city, which is all the rave for travellers to Lima!

Lima in July – don’t expect warmth and sun as this gloomy grey fog is the sky all day and apparently a lot of the time, also it’s max 17° C, which is colder than it seems with no sweet sweet UV rays to warm you up.

However, the way Miraflores meets the Pacific Coast is quite cool and it’s nice to walk around this area – especially Kennedy park! Kennedy park is a great place, where a volunteer group (Feline Defence Volunteer Group) take care of local strays and put them up for adoption, so if you’re a cat lover then I couldn’t think of a better park in Lima to go and chill! It’s also surrounded by nice buildings and restaurants etc.

I wouldn’t recommend more than 2 days in Lima though, especially if you’re short on time, in fact we wish we left south straight away. Lima has its cool places and there’s obviously way more to it than we saw, but if you’re a backpacker tight on time then head out asap.

Huaca Pucllana is a great little ancient site in Miraflores which is definitely worth a visit if you’re sticking around Lima though. You can walk there easily, it’s cheap (S/.15/£3.5) to get in and you even get a guided tour in English included in the price!

We went for a small stroll one evening around the Barranco district, which is the next recommended place to stay in Lima after Miraflores and maybe the old centre. It’s quite nice with some good restaurants, nice street art and the nice wooden “Bridge of Sighs” where you are supposed to make a wish and then walk across the whole thing without breathing – this almost ended in children being thrown to the floor and old people being pushed over the bridge as we tried to reach the other side without fainting – good fun.

Paracas

So we decided to take a 3 hour bus leaving Lima at 04:00 to Paracas, this way we would be able to do the Islas Ballestas tour & National Reserve tour in Paracas in a single day and finish the day sandboarding in Huacachina!

I couldn’t find much info about the possibility of even doing this online, in fact most people suggested staying in Paracas, but we found a way with a tour and it’s actually pretty easy and not as crazy as it sounds. As long as you can get this 04:00 bus and want to fork out £56 for a tour, which is admittedly A LOT, especially when you’re on a budget. Sometimes you just have to spend a bit more to save some time though.

Anyway, the bus from Lima was with Cruz del Sur, one of the main long distance bus companies in Peru (and the best in my opinion), and it was unbelievably comfortable with huge reclining seats and a snack. They also have their own bus terminals throughout the country so there’s no absolute chaos when arriving at a typical bus station with bus company signs all over the place overwhelming you.

We obviously slept the whole 3 hour journey which is a sign of comfort, or extreme fatigue from waking up at 02:00 😉 The hotel called us a taxi to the bus terminal, I always recommend asking the hotel/hostel to arrange taxis as you get the normal price and it’s the safest option.

At 7am we woke up in Paracas! ☀️ (ok there was still no sun).

Paracas is a tiny coastal village so the bus station is walking distance from everything so don’t worry about taxis, the bus station itself is also more modern looking than most, with a cafe and gift shop. If you book a tour then they will pick you up anyway.

The Islas Ballestas are incredible and definitely should not be missed! It was like being in a David Attenborough documentary with the shear amount of birds on those islands! There were also lots of penguins and sea lions, which I was not expecting, pretty amazing. I also didn’t get shit on even once, even more amazing.

There are only two departure times to see the islands; at 08:00 and 10:00. You can go yourself if you’re anywhere in Paracas as it’s a very small place and it’s only S/.17/£4 entrance. We did the 08:00 tour as this was part of our tour package, which proceeded to the National Reserve at 11:00, which also shouldn’t be missed and can also be done yourself with car.

The tour agency we used was PlayaRoja who were pretty good! It was expensive as previously mentioned but we needed the time saving here more than anything so it worked out well. We eventually left Paracas for Huacachina at about 15:00 to do the sandboarding 👌🏼 and finish the tour there.

Huacachina / Ica

Huacachina Oasis time! 🌴

After almost 2 hours drive from Paracas we arrive in Huacachina, and see our first bit of sun in Peru! ☀️ Everything seems a bit confusing as you are moved from minibus to minibus and eventually put in a group to do the sand boarding together, all with tour agency people shouting in Spanish and expecting you to understand, so definitely brush up on that! In the end it always works out fine though, and we can again leave our luggage in the agency shop and enjoy the dunes!

So you get led to a Mad Max style buggy playground with crazy loud and decorated desert buggies which take your group out in one buggy into a random part of the desert for the sandboarding, and it’s amazing. I recommend at this time of day too (17:30 ish) as we started off with some sun, saw the sunset while sandboarding and headed back in the dark – such an experience that I didn’t expect, and my god was the driving nuts! They drive up seemingly vertical dunes and back down the other side, so don’t forget to hold on!

Walk up the huge sand dune, twice!! You’ll notice the biggest sand dune right next to the oasis; if you are standing by the buggies looking at the oasis, it’s on your left. You get the best views from there; not just that postcard picture of Huacachina, but also the views of the desert behind.

I say twice as it’s nice to chill up there for some time during the day, maybe have a picnic, and again for sunset/dusk as you see the lights coming on and all of that great stuff. Plus, there’s not much else to do here other than enjoy the views!

I heard bad stories about the taxis between Huacachina and Ica, not just over-charging but also being unsafe, especially at night. We needed to catch a 21:30 bus from Ica, so, as always, we just asked our hotel to arrange one for us and it was fine, just S/.5/£1!

We then arrived at the Ica bus terminal for our 12 hour Econociva sleeper bus to Arequipa. The company is called Civa and they offer 3 classes of bus, this being the lowest 😒 This “bus terminal” is more like an extended crowded garage, but whatever, it has some sort of food and toilets, if you can call them that. We eventually boarded our very delayed bus to Arequipa!

Arequipa

Hola Arequipa, the White City! We were welcomed with beautiful weather, volcanic views and classical music blaring from the bus station speakers! This was my favourite place in Peru, it’s a nice easy-going city with everything you need in the centre, which feels safe even at night. There are many nice cafes and restaurants, buildings and churches with volcanos as the backdrop. The climate also improves nicely here, but we are now at 2,300m above sea level, so chill out ☀️🏔

The bus terminal is fairly big, in fact there are 2 terminal buildings but whichever one you arrive at just head outside and grab a taxi, as the official taxis are right at the exit of the terminal, and there’s even a price list! Even with this, some people will try and overcharge you with excuses like “there’s a lot of traffic”, so just ignore them and find a taxi who will do the stated price. To Plaza de Armas that is S/.8, other places are indicated on the sign 🙂

Breakfast with a volcanic view – which I think quite a few hotels/hostels boast about in Arequipa. It makes a difference starting your day taking in a view like this, with the strong sun hitting your skin, the fresh crisp air cooling you down and watching the mesmerising condors circling overhead.

Although even at 9:30am the sun will actually burn you during the time it takes you to eat breakfast, so always keep that suncream handy, or like me, use an Alpaca wool scarf that you bought the night before because it gets pretty damn cold at night as protection 🙂

Rather than paying for an Arequipa city tour with one of the many agencies which try and sell you them in the main square, take a free walking tour! This is a perfect way of seeing the city and is way more interactive, social and healthy! Keep walking to get used to the altitude, but seriously go slow, and get some of those delicious coca sweets 🙂

We did a walking tour which goes to Yanahuara viewpoint, with a view over the whole city with the volcanos as a pretty sweet backdrop, and even got a free taste of the local “cheese ice cream” – spoiler alert, it doesn’t contain any cheese, so sad.

Favourite restaurant in Arequipa? Lo’kanta. It’s such a cosy little restaurant with cheap prices (up to half the price of most other nice restaurants in the city) and amazing food, including nice choices of local and non-local dishes – perfect for budget backpackers or anyone not looking to spend much but also likes to sit down somewhere nice and get amazing value for their money!

Beers are under £2, pastas/salads/soups are under £3.5 (and they’re big!), other main meals with meats are about £6.

Also, buy many Alpaca things here – it’s cheap and the options are plentiful!

Speaking of Aplacas, there is a place called “Mundo Alpaca” – Alpaca World – practically in the centre of Arequipa. It’s in the north side of the city, just 5 blocks from Plaza de Armas. It of course has Alpacas there, but also the other South American camelids – Llama, Vicuña and Guanaco. It even has both kinds of Alpaca, the fluffy Huacaya and the dreadlock-looking Suri!

Not only can you feed these guys, but the place is also a small museum which is actually really worth going around, and it’s free!! They have some expensive shops there with the best quality wool/fur products, so I guess that’s how they make their money.

We also took a half-day tour from Arequipa to Ruta Del Sillar, as Arequipa is a great place to have more of a break so we didn’t fancy any big day tours or super early mornings here. This tour started at 8am and finished at around midday which was pretty nice. I’ve heard good things about the Colca Canyon but we didn’t have 2 days/1 night for the treck, didn’t fancy doing that anyway, and definitely didn’t fancy the 1-day 2:30am start full-day tour!

We got taken in a minivan to the working quarry site where they manually chisel the white volcanic rock from the cliffs into small blocks to be used in construction etc. hence Arequipa’s nickname as the White City. And I mean fully by hand, using 3 tools – a dangerous, painstaking job. We got to meet one of the guys working there, as well as see quite a nice rock carving which the tourist agencies advertise everywhere.

After this you go walking through like a mini canyon which is also pretty cool, but oh my god there are SO many mosquitos so spray as much repellant as possible.

This tour cost us S/.30/£7 which was alright, but you don’t get any food or anything, luckily there are snacks you can buy along the way, but it’s the classic unhealthy stuff. Would I recommend this tour? To be honest I think the best thing to do in Arequipa is relax and enjoy the city.

Overnight bus to catch at 20:30 to Cusco with Excluciva, no economy scum class this time! Still the Civa company though. The hotels here struggle to arrange taxis as they are often located on streets where cars are not allowed. So just walk to the south side of Plaza de Armas, or indeed anywhere where there are cars and flag any taxi, making sure to agree a price first of course. Remember the journey from here to the bus terminal is S/.8 so we made sure the taxi agreed with that price.

So once at the bus terminal we almost missed our bus due to the poor directions given by the staff there. Basically there are two terminals right next to each other (shown on the map), and from the inside they look the same but you might need to depart from the other terminal building that you find yourself in after getting the taxi. We ended up walking far away in the wrong direction due to misguidance from someone working for Civa, but if you need to change terminals just remember that you don’t need to go to the main streets surrounding the terminals, you can cross the car/bus park area in between. So, if you see the main streets, turn around.

Cusco / Machu Picchu

Hello Cusco!

So first thing you’ll be looking for is a taxi to your hotel/hostel and obviously you’ll get swarmed by guys saying “taxi” even though they aren’t official drivers at all and some want to rip you off. The fare to Plaza de Armas should be S/.8-10, and we got quoted S/.20 first. Some drivers will offer you a good price but I’m always sceptical about safety when not using official taxis, but we got an unofficial one and it was fine! We paid S/.10 to go to San Cristobal church towards the north of the centre.

If you want the official taxis though, just exit the bus station, then right and walk a few minutes as this is the official rank “Municipalidad del Cusco – Taxi Oficial”. If travelling by Cruz Del Sur you will arrive at their own terminal but this is the same distance from the official taxi rank.

Arriving in Cusco at about 6am was not pleasant, as it was absolutely freezing! Cusco is around 3,600m above sea level, so the climate is cold/mildly warm most of the time, absolutely freezing at night and exhausting due to the lower pressure. Not to mention that Cusco is very hilly, so it’s quite likely that you’ll need to walk up a steep hill to your accommodation which will feel like hiking Everest.

It’s not a bad looking city from above, and the Plaza de Armas is really nice too, but aside from that there’s nothing to do there and it’s overpriced due to all the tourists who have to go there if they want to see Machu Picchu or the Rainbow Mountain. Cusco is therefore a sort of prison…I mean base camp…so the day after you arrive you should be leaving for either of the main excursions, or any other reason you can think of.

Now this part of the trip is where things really took a turn. I was not prepared for anything after this point, even though I thought that I was. Neither of us were prepared, and we suffered a lot over the next week. We exhausted ourselves because there was no other options other than to pay extortionate amounts, got very ill in the process and thereafter, and inevitably changed plans due to the altitude and the sheer cold.

I have detailed the next 2 days in a separate post as it deserves a dedicated section. It describes everything about Machu Picchu; from leaving Cusco to arriving back into Cusco the following day. In short, we left Cusco the following morning for Aguas Calientes, saw Machu Picchu the following morning (which is of course incredible), and arrived back to Cusco late the following day in a bad state. In fact I felt like I had a fever – turns out it was the start of my altitude sickness nightmare. There are also caveats about the big MP which no one tells you and are VERY important if you don’t want to leave the site as frustrated as we did.

So, next stop was Puno, where we had a 6 hour bus to catch from the Cusco bus station at 8am with Cruz Del Sur, who thankfully have their own nice terminal to avoid confusion and speed up boarding. By this point my fever symptoms had reduced and I thought I was acclimatising, little did I know that I was not.

Puno

The bus to Puno was very nice, as expected with Cruz Del Sur, however we arrived 2 hours late, getting into Puno at around 4:30pm. It turns out that this was a good thing because Puno is not even worth a second in.

Seriously, don’t waste your time here. If you have to go there to move onto Bolivia then do just that, and spend as little time here as possible. The only good thing about this place is that it’s cheap, and you can get a nice hotel here for a night cheaper than the other Peruvian highlights. Indeed there is Lake Titicaca, but I still don’t think it’s worth it just for the statement of being at the highest [big] lake in the world, as it’s just full of staged tours.

All of the blocks around the Plaza de Armas look like shanty towns, and beyond those are scenes you’d only want to see from the bus. I’m being too harsh I know, especially as a curious traveller, but basically the city is not a beautiful one.

Then we have the Titicaca tours, that classic picture of a catamaran-style reed boat on Lake Titicaca by the Uros floating islands. These tours start at S/.50/£12 for a half-day tour and you only get the hotel pickup/drop off included, but we decided to do it because that’s what you do here of course! We chose Titicaca Tours as they are a big reputable company there, which we booked from Cusco.

Altitude sickness update – I woke up without my fever symptoms, but they had been replaced by the following:

• Feeling drunk & hungover at the same time
• Extreme exhaustion
• Shortness of breath
• Pain behind my right eye
• Eye fatigue in both eyes (as if I’d been staring at a computer screen all day)
• Nausea

So now I was worried, and we had a tour to go on. Remember that Puno is one of the highest cities in Peru at almost 4,000m, altitude sickness can get serious if you have multiple symptoms beyond being just a bit more tired than usual and out of breath.

We got picked up, taken on a normal boat on Lake Titicaca to one of the small floating Uros islands. We arrive with a small welcome, get sat down and are taught a few things about the place with a demonstration using reed models, which all have prices of course. We are then shown around the houses for a few minutes, while simultaneously being sold hand-made souvenirs constantly. After maybe 10 minutes on the island they ask us to take an optional boat ride (on one of the reed boats) to go to the bigger floating island where you can get your passport stamped. The price started at S/.30 but went down to S/.10 very quickly as people weren’t so interested in this optional extra on an already expensive tour. The price went even lower to S/.5 eventually just to try and fill up the boat.

We did not want to go on the boat as I was suffering greatly from altitude sickness at this point, but wow did the “island president” keep pushing us to go. I was one “vamos amigos vamos” away from pushing them off the island and declaring myself the president. Incredibly if you manage to say no enough times, you are then stuck on this god forsaken island for about 30/40 minutes doing absolutely nothing with no shade. The guide and islanders ignore you, as if because you haven’t paid extra you aren’t worth their time anymore.

Eventually you are put back onto the main boat and taken to the bigger floating island where the reed boat has mored anyway, where we then got our passports stamped! Which is obviously pretty cool.

Summary – going to Lake Titicaca is more of a statement than anything else and it’s honestly nothing special at all. There is some nice history behind as to why the people live on the lake due to the Spanish conquests, but the tours are overpriced and I wasn’t so impressed. Maybe it would have been better if I was feeling better, but the altitude is part of this place and it will affect 50% of people. Perhaps if you spent much more you would get a better experience, including spending the night with the inhabitants of these islands, but honestly it looks like it’s all very staged. They do live there, but they dress up for the tourists and nothing seems genuine. The reed boats are cool to see though, and the way that the floating islands move around is also pretty cool.

After this tour I had to go to the doctors about my altitude sickness. They took some measurements and said that I was ok, but that I CANNOT do any exercise more than slow walking until these symptoms decrease. If I did then my body may not cope with the extra oxygen that it needs, and I could get progressive altitude sickness which then affects your heart and eventually your brain. As I said, this is serious shit which these agencies do not tell you, and even joke around about just drinking coca tea and you’ll be fine in 2 days. The doctor prescribed me with the following:

• Breathing oxygen for 15 minutes
• Acetazolamide – for most altitude sickness symptoms
• Doloaproxol – for headaches
• 2L fluid high in electrolytes

If you feel any of these symptoms, just go to the doctor too. I googled doctors in Puno and found a “tourist doctor” which cost S/.150/£36 for the examination, then it cost me S/.38/£9 for the tablets from a pharmacy.

Next stop was our journey to Bolivia, which was a 2pm bus to the border, then on to Copacabana where we can spend an hour between about 5pm and 6pm for sunset, change buses to a Bolivian one and then off to La Paz, arriving at around 7/8pm! We booked this whole bus journey with Inka Lake in Puno.

Peru / Bolivia Border Crossing

The border was actually very straight forward! The bus pulls up to the Peruvian migration office where you go in and get your exit stamp, no questions asked. You walk across the border yourself (the bus will follow and meet you at the other side), you then go to the Bolivian migration office and get your entry stamp, again easy with no questions asked. The bus should be waiting outside the Bolivian migration office, or at least the driver or guide will be waiting for you there. Welcome to Bolivia! 🇧🇴

Copacabana

Now this hour in Copacabana to explore a bit, get some food and take some nice pictures turned into a “get onto that other bus now we are leaving ASAP”. Was our first bus late? No, did we get any nice pictures? No, did we get a chance to get food? Well only because I ran off the bus to grab something from a shop that I saw and told them I’ll be back in 5 minutes!

Luckily Copacabana is nothing like those classic bullshit pictures that you see on agency websites, and it’s actually a dump like Puno. Again I’m being harsh as we didn’t have time to explore, but everything we saw was not like somewhere you’d want to spend your time. You have to be on the top of that one mountain to take that one single picture that you see of Copacabana, and with this bus journey that’s impossible.

La Paz

La Paz is a huge city spread out over mountains and a big valley between. It’s quite spectacular, and I absolutely love the cable cars that are draped over the city. This is literally La Paz’s answer to a metro system, and it works so well! We took the red line up from near the centre of La Paz and got spectacular views over the city, and obviously sunset is an amazing time to be suspended over the seemingly endless city.

We arrived at the main bus terminal and it’s quite something when compared to every bus terminal we have been in so far, a huge colonial -styled building! From here we easily grabbed a taxi to the centre where our hotel was, which was 20BOB, although the traffic made this journey last a while and we could have walked it as it was only about a 15 minute walk away. In fact on our way out of La Paz the following evening we just walked to the bus station.

We only really had 1 day in La Laz, and we just walked around a little bit, booked our onward bus to Uyuni and also booked our tour in Uyuni. For our Uyuni tour we were originally planning on doing a 3 day / 2 night tour, which goes west from Uyuni to the salt flats and then south to see some of the incredible looking Lagunas, flamingos and volcanos.

However, the cold plus the altitude sickness had already destroyed us and we weren’t even looking forward to seeing these things in the state that we were, we just needed some comfort. And the first night in spent in a “salt hotel” and the 2nd in some tent somewhere in the Atacama. It sounds fun but nothing is fun when you’re ill, freezing and waiting to have a pulmonary oedema any second. So we decided to just do a single day tour to at least see the salt flats, as we came all this way. So we booked that! Around $20 each, not bad as the 3 day tour costs about 10 times as much.

Talking of altitude sickness; I felt basically the same as the previous day although luckily my eye pain has pretty much disappeared. However, it was replaced by more nausea, small headaches, complete inability to eat breakfast and the lovely side effects of the Acetazolamide (tingling fingers and face). Good stuff. This continued until we descended in altitude to below 2,500m.

Anyway back to La Paz – we were staying next to the Witches market, which is quite a surreal thing to witness. This market features all sorts of witchcraft-like products – the most horrifying being the dried Llama foetuses everywhere. Yes, dried fucking llama foetuses. See below at your own discretion.

I assumed they weren’t real at first, but on closer inspection and some research I find that they are indeed real. They range in size, colour (I guess dryness) and age of development, although some don’t look like just foetuses at all, they look like new born babies. “Apparently” they are taken from miscarriages and are burnt into ashes and buried as some kind of good luck ritual…now I’m no llama expert but I don’t believe that the llama miscarriage rate is this damn high, there were seriously hundreds of these things.

Now, back to the bus terminal for our overnight bus to Uyuni! We took the 10pm Trans Omar bus, and even after hearing bad things they were actually really good and comfortable! It’s a bit difficult to find them in the bus terminal though as all of the signs look the same, but just look up and on the left side of the terminal, hopefully that helps 🙂

Uyuni / Salar de Uyuni

Arriving into Uyuni is like you’ve crossed into the Artic circle and somehow entered Northern Canada or Greenland – it’s cold and looks like an artic fishing town. But of course you’re not here for the town, thankfully. Like most people, you’ll be waiting around for a couple of hours until the tours begin, so we found a nice “not quite warm” cafe where we could eat and freshen up a little bit by brushing our teeth in the toilet. Well, not literally in the toilet.

Our day tour that we booked in La Paz turned out to be with Salar Camel Experience. The travel agency in La Paz was not a Salar Camel one so we didn’t know, but they must arrange tours with them. I read bad things online about these guys, things like the drivers are drunk, which is quite an accusation but also not surprising when seeing what there is to do in Uyuni.

The tour was actually really good! Our driver for the day was great and didn’t seem intoxicated, he also cooked and took many many pictures of us on the main salt flats. The tour itinerary, which I think is pretty much the same for every day tour is as follows:

• Train graveyard
• Drive for a while into the salt flats and to this big building partly made from salt inside
• Have lunch in the building
• Drive to a random place on the salt flats to take many many pictures, with no other car around
• Visit cacti island, which costs an extra S./5 entrance and is actually quite amazing
• Visit some gas pools in the salt
• Stop briefly for sunset pictures and then back to Uyuni

The train graveyard was cool but way too many tourists, you can barely even take a picture. The lunch was really nice, we had rice with chicken and those much needed vegetables! Standing in the middle of the salt flats for the pictures was really nice, just an expanse of white eventually meeting the blue sky in the distance, another world.

I also really loved cacti island, it’s such a weird thing to see sat in the middle of this expanse of salt, but it’s full of tourists too. And the sunset was of course amazing and so unique, pictures of course can’t capture the colours that completely surrounded you standing there in the middle of the flats.

So after the tour we walked back to our hotel where they actually let us in this time, hooray. We got some “street food” sandwiches from across the road which were cheap and really good! We then got as much sleep as we could before our 5am bus the next morning to San Pedro de Atacama! We booked this at the bus station with Cruz Del Norte after the tour, and we got the last 2 seats on the bus so we were damn lucky, so book earlier!!

Now, off to Chile we go!

Bolivia / Chile Border Crossing

This is quite a strict border crossing due to Chile’s regulations on the environment, specifically agriculture. Firstly though we have to go through Bolivian migration as we leave, which just involves going into an office and getting a stamp, then we drive into Chile!

Once in Chile though, they took us off the bus, lined all of our luggage in a row as we filled out a customs/migration form and we watched a sniffer dog go around all of the bags many many times. We then proceeded to an inspection room where all of our bags were opened up and thoroughly inspected.

They’re not being horrible here, it’s just due to their environmental regulations and they have to check for any animal/plant related items coming into the country, but they’re friendly enough about it. It’s just always a pain when in the middle of a long bus journey, and it took about an hour and a half in total to cross, so not so bad I guess.

The views around this border, and indeed on the whole journey from Uyuni to San Pedro de Atacama were spectacular, seriously. It was a shame to be asleep on this bus. Welcome to Chile! 🇨🇱

San Pedro de Atacama

So we arrive at the tiny bus station in this tiny, dusty town, and the sun is beginning to set as we walk to our hotel. Our hotel was somewhere in the north east of the town and walking there felt a bit weird, the streets are so strange and unlit and I had no idea if I felt safe or not, but we couldn’t see a single taxi in this place, but I guess it’s ok. Anyway we got to the hotel and it was an amazing feeling, but we only had the night and following day before we had to then head back up to Peru by bus the next night.

There are lots of seemingly good tours on offer, including stargazing tours starting at 8/8:30pm for 2 hours, and loads of nice looking Laguna tours during the day at all different times. But the next morning we decided to relax and just enjoy walking around the centre of the town, taking in the the sun and the lower altitude of around 2,500m. My altitude sickness already mostly went by this point which was an amazing feeling!

There’s not really much to see in San Pedro itself, and for me it was another disappointing and overpriced town. There are no cheap options, it’s just full of tourist-aimed restaurants. Yet again no cheap street food or local food in general, and I didn’t learn anything about Chile. The whole town just had a weird feeling about it, so I didn’t feel like we were missing out by only staying here for a day.

Chile/Peru Border Crossing

So to complete the loop, we had to go from San Pedro back to Arequipa, and this was one of the most terrifying and uncomfortable experiences of my life. I didn’t take too many pictures of this journey as I was mostly fearing for my life.

Firstly you have to get 3 modes of transport. 1 – An overnight bus from San Pedro to Arica in northern Chile. 2 – Then either a bus or taxi across the border to Tacna in southern Peru. The buses from Arica bus station to Tacna don’t start until 8am apparently and we were there at 6am, so we got the taxi. 3 – Then finally you need a bus from Tacna to Arequipa. We started the journey at about 8pm and ended up in Arequipa around 20 hours later. It’s definitely a journey!

Each mode of transport got slightly better at least, so let’s start with the first one which was absolutely and utterly fucking horrible. We went to the bus station in San Pedro and booked with seemingly the only company that goes to Arica, and it’s not even direct as you still have to change in Calama, a town/city not far from San Pedro. The company was Frontera Del Norte, and we got to choose our seats on both buses as usual, and the journey cost CLP15,000/£17.

The first bus was about 2 hours and was just fine! We waited in the Frontera Del Norte bus station (small office) in Calama for about an hour for the next bus. That bus arrived on time bus it was a wreck inside. The pictures above are from this second bus, and this was our accommodation for the night. Not only was it a wreck, but our seats (11 & 12) were not located in the same place as indicated in the screen in the office in San Pedro (with space in front of them behind the stairs), they were located on the opposite side in between other seats – what the actual fuck. Whatever, at least we were on the correct floor and not on the roof or something.

So we set off, trying to recline the seats as much as possible but accepting that they were not going to magically turn into beds unless we break them, which seemed quite easy. Oh yeah also the bus stank of piss, and we were at the front while the toilet was at the back, amazing. I used my Jordanian headscarf as a gas mask.

We then drove out of central Calama, but on the outskirts of the city in complete darkness, in a neighbourhood that wouldn’t look out of place as the main scene in a documentary about drug gang violence, the bus abruptly stopped – you could hear the breaks slam on and were forced forwards – we then heard the doors fly open and some deep-voiced man shouting angrily and extremely loudly in Spanish “VAMOS! ARRIBA VAMOS!!”.

I fucking shit myself. Knees weak, palms were sweaty would be a huge understatement. Literally everything was weak and sweaty. I read about these bus hijakings happening around this part of the world and it’s always something to be cautious of, but amazingly this wasn’t one of them.

It turns out that this bus company just lets anyone on and off this bus through the journey, including in the middle of the night. The worst example was some refuelling station of some kind, about 1/3 of the way to Arica, where some guy stumbled on the bus looking drunk and of course threw himself on the seats right in front of us and immediately reclined right into our laps, when there were PLENTY of free spaces behind us. Also he absolutely reaked of Petrol which even overpowered the stench of piss, so we could barely get back to “sleep”.

Eventually after this nightmare of many many random and dodgy-looking stops we arrived in Arica at about 6am. So it was pitch black still and we were in this small bus station which is mostly outside, and asked a kiosk for the buses across the border to Tacna. As I already mentioned, they said they don’t start until 8am but we can get a taxi now, so we did. Fuck waiting in this place for 2 hours in our state, especially after the ride we just had, we wanted to get to that sweet friendly paradise of Arequipa ASAP!

So the kiosk woman pointed us to a woman walking around with a clipboard or something who seemed to be in charge of the taxis and also drove them. She said the price (CLP3,000/£4 each) and took us to a taxi where we put our bags in the boot. She then asked for our passports and walked off, always worrying. She told us to get in the car, and as we did these 3 other men also got in the car – 2 in the front and one in the back with us 2. My heart was racing quite a bit as this felt weird, and again I read that you should never get in a taxi with other people, also our passports and the woman were gone – it seemed like such a red flag situation.

Eventually she returned, took our money and gave us our passports, we then drove to the border and crossed easily – firstly the Chilean exit migration desks and then literally in the next office to the Peruvian entry migration desks. The border was quick and painless and they just asked how long we were going to stay in Peru. I even went to the toilet and the woman driving the taxi asked if I was ok, so she was actually really nice, but when everyone is speaking Spanish and you don’t really understand what’s happening and the situation seems to break many common sense safety rules then you assume the worst.

So we are arrived in Tacna fine! The taxi will drop you right off inside the international bus station, so these taxis are basically replacement services for the buses, hence the full occupancy and 2 passengers in the front. So we immediately got approached by a guy who asks if we are going to Arequipa or some other cities in Peru and we say yes, he then leads us to the domestic bus terminal which is next door. He takes us to the company that he works for which offers cheap direct buses to Arequipa, perfect!

This company was great in terms of the bus, although you should probably walk there yourself and get the ticket cheaper. He charged us S/.30 each, when on the ticket it said S/.20 – classic, just bending you over backwards and taking your money with no remorse or return. So a 7 hour bus journey now awaits, but we got to Arequipa with some daylight hours remaining! Such. A. Good. Feeling.

My friend then left for Lima to fly home the following day and I remained here for another 3 days to just try and finally relax. Enjoying the better climate and altitude of my favourite Peruvian city, and preparing for the next part of my trip before flying back to Lima.

That Damn Altitude – Final Thoughts

As for the altitude, I never got used to it like everyone says you do after 1 or 2 days. I was at high altitude for about 2 weeks starting in Arequipa and ending back in Arequipa and I had problems constantly. Even the 2nd time that I was in Arequipa I suffered – I thought I was fine and I did lots of fast-paced walking one day (I felt like I had energy again!) but then the next day I felt just like I did in Puno! The energy loss, drunk feeling and eye pain, it was like I had an exercise hangover, seriously wtf. I did nothing that entire day that I felt bad and then I felt more normal again the following day.

These problems really put a downer on the trip and there were times where I just wanted to go home, and I’ve never had this feeling before when travelling no matter how uncomfortable I’ve been, as it’s usually worth it. Then again, I’ve luckily never got that ill when travelling before, and that in general can just make you want to go home.

So there you have my 3 adventure packed weeks over 3 spectacular countries! I really hope this blog has helped you either plan a trip or inspire you! 🙂 After this I flew to Mexico, Cuba and Central America, so to continue following the adventure check out those blogs!