We arrived at Iquique at 4:30 AM. Instead of walking around in the dark to our hostel, we decided to wait at the bus stop until it got a little lighter, which didn’t end up happening until 7! We saw the sunrise for the third morning in a row on our walk.

Today was a day designated for some relaxation. In the morning, we hung out at the hostel. We are less than a block away from the beach and we have our own balcony here! No great views, but we can hear the ocean in our room.

We did some housekeeping type stuff, like going to the supermarket, then cooked some breakfast, and walked around on the boardwalk.

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In the afternoon, we headed out to the beach for a few hours. The water was pretty chilly, so we didn’t really need to get in too far to cool off. We read our books lying on the beach. Someone even gave us their umbrella that they werent using anymore! We didn’t take any pictures, because we were worried about leaving the camera or our phones unattended while we were in the water…

We were running out of Chilean pesos, so we had to go change some money in the evening, then had a glass of wine out on our patio before we headed to dinner at a seafood restaurant around the corner. We managed to catch the sunset as well!

At dinner, we shared a pastel de jaiba (crab casserole type thing) for a starter. Alejandro had Pulpo al pil pil (Octopus in a spicy sauce), and I had Chupe de Pulpo (Octopus with cream and cheese).

Given that we hadn’t slept much the night before, we made it an early night.