Under a New Flag

Hey all,

My apologies for long delays between this post and the last... We took off on a trek for a couple of days through the Colca Canyon, getting both the best workout we've had on our trip and also managing to disconnect ourselves from the internet for a while. From Colca we returned to the beautiful Peruvian city of Arequipa for a few days of rest and recovery. We celebrated the Obama inauguration with a crowd of travelers covering the couches and floor in our hostel's TV room. After another couple of days enjoying the relaxed Arequipan life, we hit the road again last night. Our bus left Arequipa at 10 pm, putting us at the Peruvian Chilean border at 3 am... one major problem: the border didn't open for another 3 hours. What is the point of arriving anywhere at 3 am? Eventually the border opened and our taxi driver literally ran us through all the proceedings, dropping us off on one side of each checkpoint and driving around so we could run back to the cab as soon as we got our necessary passport stamps. "This is the most fun border crossing ever!" was Megan's reaction. We've spent today sleeping off our overnight bus hangover in the Chilean border town of Arica. Tomorrow we head to Iquique to pick up our new Mac power cord, so we should hopefully be able to post up some photos soon.