After days on buses and in the desert it was a really nice shock to wake up on the bus to the view of the ocean as we arrived in Iquique. We had only planned one day hear, thinking that there would be nicer places further on and it struck us as we arrived that this would have been a really good place to just hang out and chill for a while. As we had arrived really early in the morning we had the opportunity of walking through the well maintained, boardwalked, pedestrianised mainstreet, flanked by the Georgian - style buildings all by ourselves. It really was beautiful. At the end of this street, you arrived at the beach where we again got to wander along boardwalks as the sun came up (you can maybe understand why we wanted to stay a while!) As you can imagine, we spent the day on the beach, except for a brief visit to a church, which was a bit of a waste because it was closed and I really wanted to see the star sparkled ceiling. Just to keep things in perspective, it is now the 22nd of February (although you may have noticed the blog is written just a little bit after that) and we were due to be in Cusco on the 3rd of March. Time is ticking ... so we boarded a bus to Arica, which is a border town of Chile that will take us into Peru. Other than the beach and the border crossing, we were looking forward to accessing National Park Lauca from Arica, which we did on a 3 day trip with just us and a guide. The Lonely Planet describes Lauca as ´at woozy heights with snow-dusted volcanoes, remote hot springs and glimmering lakes, Lauca is an absolute treasure´and it really was. We saw flamingoes, vicuñas, llamas, alpacas, vizcachas and loads of other birds along with the incredibly rare Andean dear - the huemal. The lagunes were clear and sparkling, the mountains were high and imposing, the thermal springs were at boiling point and we saw only one other car with tourists and a few park rangers. At a minimum of 3000ms, breathing was hard (especially when Tim had to push start the car), the nights were freezing (no central heating here) and the days gave us frost, fog, snow, rain and sun. We got to visit a number of rural settlements, experience the fun of carnival (including being covered in flour and shaving cream) and visit one church (about 400 years old) that has a table tied in the corner because, as the story goes, this table once escaped on turned up on the door of an unfortunate resident who subsequently died the next day. It really is hard to describe any more the beauty, tranquility and near perfection of Lauca but it has certainly been one of the highlights of our trip so far. Sadly, our time hear had to end and we headed back to Arica to continue our journey northward and into Peru to make our way to Cusco. The only downside of our time here was as we were walking to the train station to get the train to Tacna (Peru) and Tim somehow managed to hurt his back. You know, we have been climbing, walking through difficult and unmade paths, we´ve walked up stairs and down hills and walking on a flat piece of pavement Tim all of sudden stops and nearly falls over because of the pain in his back!! Well, I then had to carry his pack and the two days packs, whilst he struggled with the weight of mine until the train station - at least we weren´t boarding another bus for a bumpy ride! He had now recovered but more about that later. Next time you hear from us we will be in Peru which we are quite excited about. Take care Tim and Tracey