Adiós Perú ...

Guinea pig. Yum

After Huacachina we took a long bus ride to Arequipa. We arrived there late on a Friday night and had to go to a late night take away to get food (we were starving). We stayed in the flying dog again and got a 15% discount. We only intended to stay one night and then leave the next day to get to the border with Chile. Funnily enough, at breakfast, we bumped into a Spanish guy we had met on our Inca jungle trail, so that was really nice to catch up with him and the hostel breakfast was excellent - the first cereal I had had in 2 months! We then went to the local bus station to get a cheap bus to the border town of Tacna. We arrived too late to get the bus with the toilet, so we had no choice but to get on a bus with no toilet - for 7 hours. This was hard! But luckily we stopped after about 5 hours and we all scuttled off to go to the toilet. We arrived in Tacna and decided to cross the border straight away into Chile. We went to the bus station and a man tried to sell us immigration cards for $10 (when they're supposed to be free) and was hassling us telling us he would take us over the border. I was too tired to think straight and said we should spend the night in Tacna and then go over the border early the next morning. So this is what we did. We got a good deal on a hotel room in the town centre and then went out for our last meal in Peru, where we tried the local delicacy - guinea pig. Yuk!
The next morning, we went to the station early and shared a taxi over the border with a Chilean family. It was all quite a smooth process and only cost about £5.
Once over the border, we went to the bus station and most buses were booked out to go to Santiago due to the proximity of Christmas. However, we managed to get two cama seats on a direct coach to Santiago. 30 hours later, we were in Santiago! :)

Peru photos