Day 56 – Arica, Chile

This morning we did NOT leap out of bed as Bridge was awake half the night so Paul let her sleep until 10.40! After shrieking with horror at the lateness of the hour, Bridge leapt into action and, in spite of the delay in proceedings, we still managed to get ashore by 11.15. 😃

Having decided to eschew the military style restrictions and frustrations of another ‘organised’ shore excursion, we spent the day bimbling around Arica, a port town in the far north of Chile with a population of approximately 220,000 people, and we had a thoroughly nice day. First we mooched around the main pedestrianised shopping precinct (where, by the way, we managed to find a stationery shop and, after much pointing, miming and gesticulating, we managed to increase our stock of paintbrushes by 3 plus a handy rubber!)

By now we were rather peckish so we stopped for lunch at a splendid little restaurant where, with the help of more gesticulating, pointing and Google Translate, we managed to order our lunch and a beer and some water.

After lunch we walked along the ‘beach’. Unfortunately it was absolutely covered in rubbish, plastics, bits of old furniture, metal, broken glass and pretty much anything you can think of. To be honest it was a very depressing and disheartening sight indeed. 😔 As we ambled back however we found our way to the fisherman’s quay where the highlight of the day was undoubtedly getting up close to a number of sea lions who hang around there because the fishermen feed them. They were so close that we could have touched them. We also saw a pelican and a cat who were also seizing the opportunity for a spot of lunch. ☺️

All in all, we walked 15,000 steps today (6.7 miles) and Bridge limped back to the ship with a massive blister on her foot!