I missed a day of writing so I’m gonna throw a couple of paragraphs here while sipping coffee on the balcony of my hotel overlooking the Iquique beach.
Iquique is a port city. It was a super important port for the trade of all the mining that went on (and still does) in the interior. In fact, yesterday, I stopped by this ghost town: a town of Humberstone – a saltpeter mining company Humberstone had a township for the workers in the saltpeter mine (mine as in a field of giant rocks that the workers had to break from dawn to dusk in the hot sun). The town had modest housing for the management, accountants, doctors, dentists and ridiculously horrible housing for the workers and their families. You can see the houses, the kitchen, the school for the kids of the workers (minimum age for working in the mine was 8; in 1922 it was raised to 13 so the school was a way to grow the workforce, I suppose), a general store (workers were paid in the Humberstone currency which was only good for spending in the township), a liquor store, even a theater…
All are still there to see. The saltpeter (which had been used as a fertilizer and to manufacture gunpowder) ran out of fashion in 1960 and that’s when the mine was closed, after 100 years of operation in different (mainly foreign) ownership.
I drove to Humberstone from the Codpa Valley, a village in the middle of an arid desert on a little stream lined with fruit and flower trees. There was a 16th century missionary church just like in all the other little villages in the desert mountains. I suppose the indigenous population had long lived in these villages so that’s where the missionaries went. The missionaries were thorough. Kinda like the Mormons nowadays.
No tourists in on the Missionary Route but Iquique has them and, I suspect, most are there like me: on the way to San Pedro de Atacama. On that Missionary Route 2 days ago, I drove for hours without seeing another car. Not sure why tourists don’t go to the beautiful villages. They are so gorgeous.
On the way from Codpa to Iquique the road was better than up till Codpa. Once I climbed out of the valley up this bad insanely windy dirt road, a freshly paved smooth road coasted through the arid desert offering views of colorful valleys below…
Then it was on to highway 5, the main highway N to S in Chile. A very nice if super expensive toll road.
Highway 5 took me through some crazy looking villages that could have been in Libya (bare and military looking built with houses constructed out of metal sidings). I notice that Chileans construct little memorial structures which look just like a doghouse. They feature crosses and the name of the deceased on top of the little house. I passed by one that just read “Coke”. Hmm!
Driving on I passed some really cool geoglyphs. No idea how old or who drew them but they sure looked straight out of Rosewell.
Iquique reminded me last night of Cairns or Capetown with the park and walkways/bike lanes along the water, kids playing, people jogging and otherwise exercising, a little band playing on pan pipes to a bad drummer, jugglers, slack-line walkers… Cairns’ million parrots on the palm trees are substituted here by a million cormorants in the palm trees… With cormorant babies crying. And dogs barking or just looking up intently like “Oh I want to chase that whatever it is!”
The waves were covered in surfers who finally started milling out of the water and towards their cars once it got dark.
My room has 2 balconies. On the 7th floor. Overlooking the ocean, beaches, harbor, the palm trees with cormorant babies and the hundreds of enthusiastic surfers… Neato. Only $70!
OK, I gotta hustle!
Vagabonding Zwindling 