Onward, but mostly upward.

So today I arrived in Arica, my first stop on what is going to be a fairly whirlwind tour of Peru, Bolivia and Argentina. I basically didn't sleep last night because my flight left so early (but thanks again for the ride, Israel!) so my impressions of the city are pretty hazy. I basically fell asleep on the beach and then walked back to my hostel. Fittingly (and extremely annoyingly) the autofocus on my camera seems to be wonky. So while it's technically a malfunction, you should think of this photo as an expressive manifestation of my mental state.

Arica is basically built around this giant, sandstone hill. It sort of just looms out of nowhere and the city hugs the flats around it. It's pretty dramatic looking. To accentuate things there is a giant statue of Jesus on top with outstretched arms. It's hard to know who started the trend of putting giant religious statues on hills overlooking cities, but it's probably time to stop. I mean it's getting a bit hackneyed if you ask me.

I had a very informative conversation with the owner of the hostel and an amateur anthropologist about how I should proceed with my trip. It seems I will have to be pretty choosy about Bolivia. They have also really put the fear of god into me regarding altitude sickness. Because of my time constraints I can't make the recommended stop in Arequipa before going to Cusco. I will therefore be dealing with a fairly sudden altitude change of more than 4,000 meters*. So basically I could be completely incapacitated for my first days in Cusco. Which could potentially ruin my plans involving the salt flats of Uyuni. If I can't make it to the salt flats my back up plan is to spend an entire day swimming in the center of Lake Titicaca. Because I think it would be cool to be able to say I swam across an international border. I will also probably need the exercise after all the hours I'll have spent on buses.

*Originally I wrote this as kilometers. Which would put me very close to the moon, I suppose. Let this be a testament to my exhaustion. And embarrassing lack of comprehension of the metric system.