Santiago, Chile, all the way to Cusco, Peru

The all night bus ride to Santiago was cool. We cruised through the Andes Mountains which were awesome.We crossed the border into Chile and it was very cold. Going through customs was easy but the drug sniffing dog was interested in my dad's backpack. Finally he got bored and went to looking for something to eat. We arrived in Santiago, the capital of Chile early in the morning.

Santiago was a very cool city. While we were there we got to go to two great movies, saw some cool historical sights, hung out in the Plaza de Armas, and ate lots of ice cream and other good food. We then caught a 5 hour flight from Santiago to Rapa Nui (Easter Island). The flight was great and I got to watch 2 movies and play video games.

Easter Island, which is stuck by itself out in the middle of the Pacific Ocean, reminded me of Hawaii. It was very warm and sunny. We checked out all the moi statues all over the island. The statues were huge and made out of volcanic rock. We got to go swimming in the ocean at a very cool beach.We also went hiking to see some moi statues in the middle of nowhere and also got to explore an awesome cave. We hitchhiked all over the island and got six different rides from very interesting people. We flew back to Santiago and then headed north toward Peru.

Our next stop was in La Serena, a little town on the coast about 5 hours north of Santiago. While there we had our own kitchen and my mom made the best spaghetti. We saw all the cool sights and some of the 29 Catholic churches in the city. We also went to the beach, but it kind of sucked. We then headed to Copiapo, 5 hours further north. Copiapo was not that great and there was nothing to really see. We did have some tasty empanadas and pizza. We then caught a really long bus to Arica, Chile, by the border.

The bus ride to Arica left in the afternoon and lasted 19 hours. We waited until nearly midnight to get the one meal they served. It turned out to be a tuna sandwhich in a bag that nobody on the bus ate. My mom took one bite and spit it out. My mom and I sat all the way in the back by the restroom and it smelled like urine and other stuff I don't want to talk about. I was barely able to get any sleep. We arrived in Arica and caught a taxi across the border to Tacna, Peru. We explored all the sights of Tacna in about 10 minutes. We did get to rest and eat some good food before heading on to Puno. It was a 12 hour bus ride to Puno.

Puno is a really cool city, but we could only stay one day because we had to meet my parent's friend in Cusco. Puno was really cold because it is high up in the mountains and right on Lake Titicaca (that is really the name of the lake). We got to eat some delicious alpaca that was really good. It was weird eating an animal that I have seen in the zoo. From Puno it was only an 8 hour bus ride. So in 3 days we were on the bus for 39 hours. It was horrible, but we arrived in Cusco, which is a great city.

Cusco is awesome. It is one of my favorite places we have visited on this trip. It is in the moutains and there are Incan ruins everywhere. There are churches that are over 500 years old and neat buildings all over the city. The first night we got here we ate alpaca steaks and Andean trout. We have been eating great food ever since. We hiked up a mountain and checked out some Incan ruins and saw a great view of the valley and the city of Cusco. I am going to be buying most of my souvenirs here in Cusco because there are so many cool things to buy and everything is a good price. Tomorrow we are going to a futbol (soccer) game and then there is some big celebration in the Plaza de Armas. We are then going to explore Machu Picchu which will be great. Email me or make a post on my blog. Bye.