Bye to our new brief friends at Puerto Inca

We had a great nights sleep although Christine reminds me we all went to bed late a 11pm. We were invited to sit with our neighbors from Germany, Spain, and the Argentinian-Colombian couple. Sesou was a Persian-German with the unimog and it turns out he was a dentist who hit the road two years ago and was traveling indefinitely with his wife and two kids. Interestingly, 10 years ago when we were on our motorcycle trip on the pan American highway he and his wife were backpacking the pan American. 

In the morning we toured each other's vehicles. Their vehicle was made and designed by themselves and they had plug in ac and water filter system and two 5k inverters, an oven, and a washing machine. They had bought their 20 year old 1222 Mercedes chassis as a retired firetruck with only 20,000 km on the clock. Of course it did not have any mechanical problems in the two years of travel so far. 

We hit the road because we had a 6 hour drive which could easily turn into 8. The scenery showed sand dunes on one side and the ocean on the other. We passed three river mouths with brown effluent from rains in the mountains and the verdant crops in the fields surrounded by sand dunes. We had passed olive groves yesterday and today we passed fig orchards and rice fields. We bought bags of figs for 50 cents each and a bottle of fig juice for 60 cents. 

We had lunch at the rice valley. There was fried fish on the menu so we had some and it was fresh and delicious.

We continued on the road as the sun started going down and we started climbing the mountains and headed inland and found ourselves behind a slowly moving traffic jam of trucks and then it started drizzling and when we arrived in Arequipa it was wet and dark and google maps led us to two one way roads but in the wrong direction. We circled for a while finding alternate routes and after a few u turns we made it to the campground at a hotel. There were two other RVs in the campground and we sighed relief. 

Dd made his first bag of top ramen for him and Ellie. Christine and I had leftovers from yesterday and today. We will probably be here two nights.

We got messages from Nico that they had arrived back home and had a dinner of fondue. They will be back in eight months. Werner the Swiss couple in the Hymer we met at our first campground in Peru just entered Chile and said the customs confiscate fresh fruits and vegetables. Also honey, cured meats, garlic, cheese, dairy products, nuts, seeds.