Crossing the Border

We had a unique and somewhat unsettling experience crossing into Peru yesterday. After 4 days of having a spanish speaking guide in Chile (Carissa) we left on our own for Peru. We flew to the northern border of Chile and planned to take a bus to our next destination about 200 miles into Peru.

So we got off the plane and realized we were in a tiny airport and no one spoke English. Also, we didn´t know whether we were supposed to take a bus from that Chilean city or whether we were supposed to take a taxi into Peru and get a bus there. After much confusion, we decided to take a taxi into Peru...but as we reached the border, the taxi driver started saying ¨Problema¨

Turns out that for some reason cars weren´t allowed to cross the border. So he helped us fill out some customs forms and pointed in the direction we needed to walk. We really weren´t very sure we were doing the right thing but found the place we needed to go to exit Chile and then had a unique 1/2 mile walk through the desert to the Peru customs building. Finally, we passed through Peru customs and found a taxi on the other side to take us to the closest city in Peru (the border crossing is in the middle of a gigantic sand desert) where we found a bus to Arequipa.

Quite a day. Thanks to Erin´s spanish classes 12 years ago we did OK, but not without quite a bit of confusion.