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Santa Laura nitrate oficina
this is where they crushed up the rock... Although we are now in Arequipa in Peru, this entry is mostly gonna be about Iquique and Arica in the of Chile, seeing as how things happen faster than blog entries make em possible to describe.
After Copiapo we arrived in Iquique early in the morning with butt cheeks numb after an 11 hour journey. At first sight it looked promising, a large city spread out over a narrow strip of flat land in between the pacific ocean and the coastal mountains which loom 800 metres over the city. That explained why it is the paragliding capital of south america. Luckily for us we had somewhere to stay...with my cousins mother in law, who is called Edu. What Edu lacked in footballing skills she made up for in warmth and hospitality and she and her husband Lucho made us feel right at home. On their recommendation we headed into town to find somewhere to eat.
The centre of Iquique is lovely, all wooden buildings made from Oregon pine that ships brought to chile as ballast in the 19th century. It kind of looks like New Orleans in Interview with a Vampire, but without the wigs (and the vampires).
Pelican skeleton
This ones for you Pab! The city is one of the most historic in Chile, being one of the main ports for the nitrate industry. Evidence of this past isn't obvious at first, but after talking to a few people and checking out the local museum it became apparent that this city was built cos of nitrate. A couple of big statues of manful fellas wielding massive hammers made this clear. Fact is that inland from Iquique there is nothing but desert so agriculture was never going to be a big earner in these parts. What was a bit more of a surprise was to find out about British links to the city and to the north of Chile in general. Basically, the British owned all the nitrate mines until the early 30s when the Chilean government bought them at rock bottom prices due to the wall street crash. A couple of the most famous brits were called North and Humberstone, but there were thousands of others some of whom stayed and whose surnames are now proudly carried by Chileans.
This also means that the brits were partly responsible for the biggest massacre in Chilean history. Back in 1907 Chilean nitrate workers were on
engine trouble
Er, where's me spanner? strike for better pay and conditions and they eventually decided to march to Iquique. Once in Iquique they gathered with their families in a school called Santa Maria, where government troops shot 2000 of them. Dead. Anyways, this grim episode is one of the key moments in the foundation of the Chilean Left, and is going to be properly commemorated for the first time since the dictatorship next year.
One of the most interesting things we did in Iquique was a trip out into the desert to two of the nitrate "oficinas", Santa Laura and Humberstone (these were among the first to open in the 19th C and the last ones to close in the 1960s). The first one was just the factory and the industrial remnants of what was once a bustling town of a couple of thousand people, the second was basically the town that the nitrate workers lived in. Both places were eerily empty, especially with the sound of the desert wind blowing through the holes in the walls and things. Must have been a hard life out there in the desert.
Thankfully, after all this touring of industrial grimness (and you thought sheffield was bad!) we headed to an oasis called Pica where we soaked in a thermal bath and drank amazing fruit juices. We then went to see some pre-conquest geoglyphs which are basically pictures that Áymara (a local indigenous people) explorers scratched out of the surface of the hills, giving practical directions in the desert and also asking the gods for help in surviving in the unknown. What the figures with big willies are for is open to interpretation...
The next two days were made up of long bus journeys through the desert (each one more bum numbing than the last), stopping off in Arica (hmmm one word - crap) before crossing the frontier into Peru. Arica was already like being in another country, but Tacna was definitely something else. Hectic does not begin to describe it. Basically, Peru is visibly much poorer than Chile, and not just that, but its even less organised. So a bus journey from Tacna to Arequipa that should have taken 5 hours took 8 hours (four whole Jackie Chan films - no jokes!) two of those hours spent sitting in a desert village while the drivers messed about in the engine somewhere. Nice and reassuring.
The main thing is we made it and are now here in heavenly Arequipa, worth a visit from the UK on its own. Tomorrow we are off on a 3 day trek in one of the worlds deepest canyons. Meanwhile the striking bus drivers outside are slashing tyres and smashing windows, more on that later...
much love to all,
V and M.
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Pablo Navarrete
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you aint seen nothing yet....
if you think Peru is disorganised wait till you get to Venezuela! get ready for magical realism...