We landed in Tacna around 7:15am.  Because it is a completely normal and frequent thing to border hop to Chile there, there are lots of taxi services that just basically drive over the border and back all day.  I'm actually super grateful for this.  The internets told me we'd probably have to fill the car and there would be a per-person price.  However, the guy we used had a car price, so we could just ride with our little family for S/.150.  Then he hung out while we waited forever for our suitcase and stroller to come off of the plane :)

Now, let me tell you why having dedicated border taxis is the best thing ever - it's what they do. All day, every day.  They have copies of the paperwork you need.  They know what you need to fill out.  They have a handle on the rules.  They know where you need to stand and what the next steps are to get in and out of the countries.  Best thing ever.

Anyway, so it's a two-step process to drive to Chile.  Step one, get out of the car and cross through Peru's immigrations.  This involves paperwork and a security check (easy xray/metal detector stuff the whole time, though).  Actually, to leave Peru, it's just a metal detector.  Then you get back in your car, drive for a little bit, and then get out at Chile's border control station.  At least Peru's is indoor.  Chile's lines are all outside.  At least their workers get to sit inside?  Fill out some papers, check passports.  Check baggage and go through the metal detector. Ding! You're done.  You may continue driving to Arica.  They say the drive is like an hour, but that has got to include standing in line time.  Getting to Arica the day and time we went was pretty easy.

So we drove to Arica and our taxi driver took us to our hotel, the Panamericana Hotel in Arica, or just called Hotel Arica.  I think it was like $120 USD/night, so not terrible.  Honestly, while there are (according to the internet) some ritzier places in Arica, this was pretty close to top-end.  And definitely near top-end pricing.  Not bad, eh? :)

We were greeted by a friendly gentleman who quickly became my favorite staff member.  Matt and I both hoped he was a manager of something at the least.  I just wish I'd gotten his name and/or a picture of him.

Lucky for us, they let us check in early.  Also, elevators are apparently not a thing in hotels, at least in that area.  Neither our Arica nor our Tacna hotel had an elevator.  Fortunately, these wonderful people haul your crap up the stairs for you :) (Also, I can't say I blame them on not using elevators.  All of the elevators down here are pretty tiny and break down way more often than they should.)  So we relaxed in our room and settled in for a bit.  

So, fun story.  Peru is immigration-challenged.  Okay, they're challenged in a lot of areas, but for this story, we only care about immigrations :)  Anyway, so you can stay up to like 183 days on a tourist visa, but they typically only issue them for 90 days.  However, there is no way to extend said visa while still in-country.  Now, Matt's working visa/business visa/whatever it is was finally in-process, but he didn't have his carnet yet.  However, we can't do mine or Henlie's visas until his is all done.  This meant, as of February 3rd, my visa and Henlie's visa were up.

We then had to decide how we were going to handle it.  Were we just going to border hop somewhere here?  Were we going to take our once-per-year company-paid trip home?  Would we overstay and just have a fee when we left the country (USD $1 per day you overstay)?  While I know I want to go home, if we went that route, would we all go? Would just Henlie and I go? Would we stay and have the baby in the US? Would we go and then pay for a second trip after the baby came?

Money-wise, if we went home, just me and Henlie made the most sense.  It made even more sense to stay until the baby was born.  Matt could then use his paid trip home around baby time and we could all fly back together.  Not going to lie, the thought of entering the country again without Matt is a bit daunting, and I didn't really want to do it.  However, if we went with a prolonged stay, we would have a lot of luggage, and it would probably just be me and Henlie, which was also unappealing.  We had a hard enough time with our luggage and the two of us when we moved to Peru!  So, we looked into border hopping down here and taking a little vacation.

At first, we looked at taking a domestic flight and driving across the border.  Then we had to decide which border?  Ecuador or Chile?  I originally leaned toward Ecuador.  We also looked at flying directly into another country, but that made flights much more expensive.  Then, Matt's company offered to pay for the trip since we had to take it anyway.  If we'd booked when we were looking, we totally could have flown to Santiago.  However, the next week, the prices like tripled and took that out of the picture.  So we went with the original plan, taking a domestic flight and driving across the border.

There are only 3 flights offered by LAN from Lima to Tacna, Peru daily.  Really early, noon-ish, and evening.  Guess which flight fills first?  Yep, noon-ish.  So, we opted for the 5:05am flight.  Matt couldn't get ahold of his usual taxi guy, Andres, so I called a lady in our ward who offers driving and translation services, Graciela.  Graciela was in the Relief Society presidency when we moved in.  (She may still be, but hey, I'm in primary now, so I don't know those things.)  My friend Abby also used her the day we went shopping for supplies at Sodimac.  When she gave me her card after that trip I thought to myself, "I'm never going to use this."  Surprise, surprise!  I'm so glad she did!  She was available and willing to pick us up and take us to the airport.  Bonus - her fee from San Isidro to the airport was only S/.45.  Andres would have been S/.50

We arranged for Graciela to pick us up at 2:30am because LAN thinks you should be at the airport 2 hours early.  I don't know why. :p  So we got up around 2am and finished packing, and then got the baby up.  I was surprised she actually woke up.  I thought we'd basically change her diaper, put shoes on, and carry her limp body.  Not so!  Actually, that made it rather easier :)

We got to the airport and got checked in.  Then we headed to our gate to wait.  Henlie decided she wanted clothes, so I changed her out of her PJs.  We all had a banana muffin from Wong for breakfast.  I also bought a bottle of water and a bottle of juice at a little cafe because I was thirsty.  Matt gave me S/.20.  Bonus, there were Halls cough drops by the register.  Gosh dang it, I needed something to help with the coughing.  They were only S/.3, so I had enough after the drinks to buy them.  I hate Halls, but at least they helped :)