All Good Things Must End - or Do They?

After 4 beautiful days on the beach in Bahia Inglesa, we took an overnight bus to Iquique further north in Chile on our way back to Peru. While waiting in the bus station, we met a very nice young woman who spoke English and came to sit with us to wait for our bus - which was an hour late because of a flat tire further south.

I tend to prefer the buses, when riding for 12-14 hours, that leave around 8:00PM or so. I find that I can sometimes fall asleep early and we arrive around time to wake up. Leaving at midnight didn't put us there until almost 2 in the afternoon. The sun is HOT by noon - its already burned off all of the clouds blown in from sea - and the buses are never quite cool enough. By the time we got to Iquique, Helen was feeling ill and we were all a little out of sorts.

We arrived to a blazing sun and a blue blue sky. On our way to our hotel, the taxi driver told us the hotel we had booked was in a perfect location, 5 blocks to the Market, 5 blocks to the pedestrian street into town, and 5 blocks to the beach. Things were already looking up!

Once we got to our hotel and checked in, we took a walk down the street to have a late lunch at the Central Market. This is usually our favorite place to eat in any South American city. Since it was so late, we stopped outside on the sidewalk at the first restaurant that we saw. The food was ok, but we were much happier later, when we actually made the trip inside the market and had lunch there.

After lunch we strolled back to the hotel and had a nap to recharge the batteries. This always seems to make the girls unhappy, unless they actually fall asleep and then they wake up happy. Mike was happy. Debby was not. Helen was happy. Meghan was not. Sigh, you can't win them all.

In the late afternoon we walked out to the beach and then to the downtown central square. This is probably one of the more picturesque squares we've been to in Chile. Iquique was having a festival to celebrate the residents from different countries that live in their city. There were several booths set up around the main square selling traditional foods from their countries. The countries that participated were Argentina, Columbia, Peru, Italy, Arabia, & Spain. On a side note, there are a group of Chinese restaurants (about 6 of them) on a corner within about 4 blocks of the main square - but they were not represented in the festival. My conclusion: there must be a scandal in there somewhere.

After cruising the square and checking out all of the booths, we decided not to wait in line for food. So we walked back down the pedestrian street to have dinner at a little restaurant with tables set up outside. They snagged us with their 2-for-1 happy hour Pisco Sours. Only, drat our poor Spanish skills, we didn't realize when we ordered them that we ordered 2 and ended up with 4. The fortunate part was that, of course, this made the final bill for them a little easier to swallow :)

It was a fine day in Iquique. I look forward to having a few more of them before we leave Chile.