Arica/misc.

Arrived in Arica early this morning and spent most of the day outside. Decent beach town but not a whole lot going on and the beaches are pretty empty (it is a Monday I guess). Was going to try for a surf lesson tomorrow but I have decided to head out a day early to Arequipa, Peru - canyon country - so I can set up a multi-day trek there before I leave for Cusco Friday night.

Not much to write home about Arica, so some very general observations on South America thus far:

- everyone here loves ice cream (ice cream stands are all over)
- all bottled soda is/has expired, be it three days or three months (seriously. cans are fresh)
- stray dogs live in every town
- graffiti is in every town, regardless of how developed it is and including the random towns I have passed on bus trips
* the graffiti here is particularly strange, as most of the stuff I can translate is harmless yet it takes away from some beautiful places. e.g. in Mendoza there is a giant outdoor park, and my bro and I were walking along and saw that someone had spray-painted nonsense on some trees. Why? Not cool.

Besides the above, South America has been a great place to visit and I trust it will continue to be so. I will leave you with one last observation: I was eating lunch outside today and a rather large, older woman walked by wearing a hot pink shirt that said ¨Feeling Naughty¨in English in big black letters. I hoped/feared she knew what that meant, but I did not bother to ask.