Arica

---

Arica is quite a large town nestled on the coast a handful of miles from the Peruvian border.

Being a border town which once had the biggest silver mine in the world and copious amounts of nitrate deposits not far south it has been hotly fought over in bygone years.

There is a large sandstone cliff at the south end of town known as El Morro de Arica and during the war of the Pacific in the 1870s Peru defended Arica as it was in there hands, In 1880 the city fell to Chile in a battle known as the desert campaign and Peru left, content to take Arequipa instead, Boliva once had claim to this area also but lost it to Chile in doing so also lost it port and is now land locked, Relations between the two countries remain unofficially tense.

Atop of the cliff sits a small museum which houses some of the remaining relics from the war of the Pacific, Canons guns uniforms ect, nearby a huge statue of Jesus stands with his arms outstretched facing the bay, this is a common pose for JC in these parts, he is impressive against the desert sky. A huge chilean flag stands nearby, In this town it is a curious thing that everywhere the flags blow proudly in the wind, National pride is huge and it is common to hear marching bands playing nationalist tunes.

Though one of the driest cities on earth it has yearly cloud cover similar to London.

Pretty Arica isn't though it has a few interesting buildings including the custom house and the ornate Cathedral de San Marcus de Arica.
The beach is nothing special and parts of it are very dirty, broken glass is everywhere and the views of the shipyard is not pleasing on the eyes.
On the docks sealions and pelicans lounge getting fat on the waste that the fishermen discard.

We met a couple of retired teachers from Adelaide who were staying in Sunny days hostel, they have a general love of traveling and charmed us with their tales, we spent a few days together eating having a couple of glasses of wine and a few day tours, I love it when I meet genuinely interesting people like Diana and John, they kept us smiling and made our stay more enjoyable.

---