Day 38 - Arequipa.

Surprisingly awake and rearing to go when the bus pulls into the Arica terminal at 6am. It’s a balmy morning and there’s a breeze coming from the ocean. Ignore the touts shouting out: “Arequipa!” even though that’s my next destination; I know exactly where I’m going.

Arica feels different from the rest of Chile, probably because it’s right near the border of Peru and Bolivia; there are far more indigenous faces here, and things seem more chaotic. I make for the international terminal next door and clamber into a taxi colectivo with four other women; at CH$3000, it’s slightly pricier than the bus, but it’s a lot quicker, as the driver helps you with the border formalities. We’re off to the Peruvian city of Tacna, from where I’m due to catch another bus to Arequipa.

The other passengers are Peruvian ladies coming home; they chat to me and look out for me at the border crossing, advising me where to go and watching over my luggage. The Peruvian border guard ignores the wild boar pate that I’m carrying across the border but is very interested in my mouthwash for some reason.

Beyond the border lies a wide, dusty plain dotted with what appears to be rectangular huts, woven out of some plant, and square little brick buildings which look like outhouses, but I’m not sure what they are. Near Tacna, there are fields and fields of flat-leafed cactus, which looks like it’s cultivated; maybe it’s like the nopal in Mexico.

Tacna itself is a dusty sprawl of adobe buildings in between giant sand dunes. On one of the massive sand dunes someone’s taken the trouble to lay out the town’s emblem and other designs in what looks like darker rock. You can definitely tell that you’re in a different country: the traffic is more chaotic, and the bus terminal is awash with smells of spicy food. I change my remaining pesos into soles and manage to get a bus ticket on Arequipa straight away. The nice agent even walks me across the road to the Buses Flores terminal and offers to help with my luggage, though I don’t let her; she’s my height and looks far more fragile.

As our journey through the desert progresses, I’m so glad that I’ve splurged on the posher double-decker bus with air-con rather than paying half for the clasico; the trip takes almost seven hours due to being frequently stopped by police (they check our travel documents and luggage), road works, and the fact that you really can’t speed up on long stretches of the road – though mostly empty, it winds along hairpin bends with sheer drops along the side. No wonder there are so many roadside shrines to the dead. At one point, mist comes down so thickly that you can’t see more than a few metres in front of you, and the bus slows right down, though I can see other cars dashing by in the opposite direction at higher speeds.

Much of the landscape is a moonscape – reddish hills and dusty desert, where the only sign of civilisation are electricity pylons. When we pass through a couple of little town, I notice that the designs on the giant sand dunes are actually made of a dark cactus, clearly planted especially.

Some puzzling billboards. One says: “Papa no corres, vuleve a casa.” (Daddy, don’t run away, come home.” I wonder if there are many absent fathers in Peru. Another billboard warns against having too many children: “How are you going to love them all?” This is a Catholic country, right? I wonder what alternatives they’re suggesting.

Arequipa takes me by surprise. For some reason I was expecting a sunny, chilled-out city like somewhere in Andalucía, but the first thing that hits you is the smell of diesel fumes, closely followed by the cacophony of street sounds. I take a cab to my place – Los Andes, right by the Plaza de Armas; the chatty driver gives me tips on what to see.

Am a bit light-headed, possibly because I hadn’t had a proper meal in 24 hours, so my first priority is food. I play Russian roulette by choosing a rocoto relleno, which looks like a bell pepper stuffed with meat – some of them are mild, and some are explosively spicy. Mine is so spicy that it brings tears to my eyes and I gulp air like a fish.

I make my way through the city’s chaos to get my bearings; last time I was in Peru, I was travelling with Mike, and when I travel with someone who knows the place, I tend to switch off the ‘guidebook writer mode’ and not pay much attention to where everything is. I take in the beautiful stone churches, which I’ll explore in more detail later, and the really impressive white stone convent, which takes up more than a block; here I find La Trattoria, the Gastón Acurio restaurant that my friend Pete recommended and make a reservation for my last day.

Gastón is a Peruvian culinary superstar, and his food is some of the best I’ve ever eaten; he has branches all over the place, including Spain, and now the States as well – San Francisco or New York. He makes Jamie Oliver look like a peasant. End up having dinner at another of his places – Chicha – which does traditional Arequipa food, but really, really well. Look wistfully at the wonderful-looking cocktails – different takes on the original pisco sour – and go for a chicha morada (purple corn drink) instead because we are at an altitude. Pig out on ceviche and traditional food – a posh rocoto relleno, awesome pork crackling, and something delicious and gelatinous attached to bone, which I can’t identify but which turns out to be a pig’s trotter.

The original plan was to stay in Arequipa for a couple of days, but since a three-day trek into the Colca Canyon only runs on Saturdays and Tuesdays, I have no choice but to explore the city when I return.