Iquique,Chile

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Whoops it's been a while since I last wrote, it just has been hard to find a computer so far to upload photos of my adventures in Chile but I'll add them later on. I arrived in Chile mid November and the transition is quite brutal, the south of Peru becomes quite isolated as you get closer to the border, similar to the north with unfinished houses, shitty cars, shitty roads. As soon as I crossed the border, I felt like I arrived in the USA. The cars were pick up trucks, the houses on one floor and finished. It they don't look like they can survive a hurricane, the roads are wide and concrete. Iquique is the first city where I stayed, it is a beach city and quite ugly in the centre, but real pretty on the coast. It had a hippy vibe to it, especially on the most touristic street which looked like an abandoned movie set. it is a surf city as the beach is long and not rocky. It i am the daughter of my father so I went to visit the corbata Esmeralda, à reconstituions of the 19th century boat. It is quite the legendary boat for Chile as it fought against Peru but sank off the coast of Chile while doing so. It looked so fancy, not used to these more modern boats so I was impressed by the luxury.
I also went to visit the ghost town of Humberstone. This is more inland, it was built in the 19th century as a mining town to export to Europe but just before the Second World War, Europe started using its own materials so this town was not useful anymore and died out, it was abandoned in the 1930s. It was really creepy to walk in the silence of this town, you can still feel the life that was there especially when you walk into people's homes. Not everyday you get to go through alll these usually forbidden doors in life, so I had a blast, I went upstairs in the church, backstage in the theatre and onto the stage, through eveydoor in the school, the hospital and the swimming pool, behind the bar! It's stupid, but just strange feeling to be able to walk everywhere and invade people's homes. Great feeling!

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Photos

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Iquique beach

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La Corbeta Esmeralda

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Humberstone Ghost town

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Humberstone theatre

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humberstone swimming pool

Comments

[Dad]

Amazing
Waoow. You're taking us to completely unknown territories to us. Just awesome. Kiss you. Dad

[MumBribri]

Du changement en effet !
Coucou ma biche, effectivement, les photos de ville changent totalement de ce que tu nous avais fait voir auparavant au Pérou ! ça semble beaucoup plus aseptisé ! Quelles aventures formidables encore tu viens de vivre avec la visite de ce paquebot et de la ville fantôme ! J'avais visité dans la Death Valley en Californie (US) en 1974 une ville morte pour les mêmes raisons, sauf que c'était l'époque des mines d'or et de la course effrénée vers l'ouest des EU pour s'enrichir. Mais quand il n'y avait plus rien dans la mine, il ne restait plus qu'à partir. La ville était petite mais je me souviens avoir eu le même sentiment que toi lorsque je suis entrée dans la salle de classe de l'école (qui faisait vraiment penser à celles que l'on voit dans les films de cow-boys !). C'était comme s'ils étaient partis en laissant tout derrière eux. Douloureux sentiment en pensant à eux ! Mais un côté fascinant aussi lorsque l'on traversait cette petite ville ! On sent que tu as bien préparé ton voyage car à chaque étape tu as une expérience au moins à vivre et pas des moindres ! Je te souhaite de continuer ainsi ce beau voyage. Je t'embrasse très fort. Mum