Arica - part I

Welcome to Chile.
It has been some pretty intensive days since I left Peru. I was travelling with a girl from Alaska, Marla or as I started calling her- Alaska. We have really enjoyed ourselves and we have laughed like maniacs.
Tuesday morning we took the bus from Arequipa to Tacna. It is a 6 hour busride through the desert. It was a very long busride, because we were in the front seat with super view, but that also meant that the sun was right in our faces, and there was no aircondition or anything to cool us down in the bus.
It was kind of hectic when we arrived to Tacna. We had to find some way to cross the boarder, and there was one guy who wanted to drive us to Chile but he wanted one of us to hide in the boot because he told us that sinceit was our first time in Chile we had to pay 20 dollars each and thank god we did not do that because that was not at all true.
It seemed that the easiest way to cross the boarder was to go with one of the many cars, it was supposed to be faster and better than the buses.
So that was what we did. When we came to the peruvian side of the boarder Marla and I were taken out and were taken in to an office with this guard. "We are gonna check you for drugs" she said. Well okay. So she checked all my stuff that I had on me, and then I had to pee in front of her. The problem was, that since we had been in a bus I hadn't been drinking that much, since I didn't want to go to the really disgusting toilet all the time. So I had a really hard time peeing, and the guard watching me didn't make me feel any better. At some point I kind of gave up, and said "I can't" and the lady was really cold and just said "well, you have to". Hm, at the end I managed to pee, and I could walk out of there without problems. But the even more weird part of this was that she didn't take a sampel or anything, so it all seemed a little ridiculous.
When we came to Arica we tried to call the guy that I met in Puno who had told me that we could stay at his house. But he didn't pick up. So we went downtown and had some delicious fish and some beer, and really laughed a lot about the whole expirience we had today. But it would get even better.
We tried to call Alfredo a last time, and luckily he picked up, and he said that we could just come stay at his house. Awesome.
It turned out his house was huge house with maids and gartners. Wow. It was really orange county. But the people there were really nice.
We put a barbeque in the back of his huge car, and drove to a beachside apartment where they tried to bring the barbeque to the 11th floor. It just all seemed so ridiculous, and so surreal. They really tried to convince the guard that it was okay to bring the barbeque up there,  but in the end, I think they realized that they could not change his mind. When we came to the apartment the first thing that met uswas a mountain of different kinds of raw meat, and I just said: "I don't know how to behave around this much meat!"
Later we all went dancing, and right before that we had asked Alfredo if Arica was dangerous, and the answer was "No, it is super tranquil, and very relaxed". But when the nightclub closed and we went to get our jackets, they were gone. Damn it! Evenmore damn it because Marla had her credit card in her jacket. This was just a really a perfect ending on the craziest day so far.
We only slept a couple of hours, and then we went to the beach. I realized how hard it is to met up with people when you don't have a cellphone. Anyways, the water was great, and we really enjoyed being close to the sea and in this great weather.
We all went back to Alfredo's house after (the chileniens always travel in pack and hang around in packs) and  they smoked some pot (like they hadn't smoked anything yet today) and the maid had made us lunch. I didn't really know how to behave around the made, it just seemed a little weird to have somebody serv you.
Anyways, we had a great siesta and after they decided to make some more food, so we drove around more or less all of Arica to find exactly the meat they wanted, but I guess it was worth it, that was at least what Marla said.
We drove to this really quiet and deserted place where we could se all the stars, wow it was incredibly beautiful.
Later we went to this even mroe deserted place that actually said no entry, and there we had a barbeque and drank some beer, and they smoked even more pot. But we had a good time there. At some point Marla and I went to the roof and sat there and looked at the stars for a long time. BEAUTIFUL!
At the time we got hme from that party it was around 3.30 and we had to get a cab at 5, so we only had like 1-1½ hour to sleep before we should catch our plane to Santiago. Well, I guess that was just an apropriate way to end this stay in Arica. It's gonna be interesting to see what is gonna happen when I come back here.