For a change, we are going to start with the end of the tour. Yeah, it’s a small port.
Let’s compare the size of the Silver Moon to the buildings in town.
The area is prone to earthquakes, so most buildings stop at 3 stories.
We started the day back at the main square. Here’s a different picture of the iron church. Our guide explained it’s a real pain to maintain, as it’s an iron building right next to the ocean, so every few years they must completely remove the paint and inspect everything. The only parts that are not iron are the windows and the door.
We then wandered a bit downtown. Our guide explained that northern Chile still follows the traditional “Spanish” working day by opening businesses at the crack of 9:00-9:30, having a late lunch followed by rest / siesta and then working later into the evening. As we passed there were lines waiting for the banks and government offices to open.
We then circled back to another Eiffel building, this time the original customs house. It was still prefabricated in France and assembled here per instructions, but this time the walls were stone with metal supports. However, it is much closer to the shore. When the last big tsunami hit, the one that stopped at the seventh step of the Church, the customs house was hit hard. The clock shows the time of the tsunami as it was never repaired. The house is now a general use museum.
Back on the bus, we stopped to view some geoglyphs. Arica is at the closest spot between the ocean and the Andes, so there has always been travel thru the desert valleys. Some of these glyphs are over a thousand years old, and there are hundreds scattered in the desert.
We then visited the Archaeology Muesum, that houses the oldest mummified remains in the world, some going back 8000 years. People have been in the Arica area a long time.
There was a section of the museum dealing with civilization thru the ages, with big jumps when the Inca swept thru and, of course, the Spanish. I liked the displays of the different textiles and a quipu. How did the Inca get so big with no written language?
We finished our tour at the Morro, the big rock near the port. As you saw last time, even the flag is big.
There were a couple of requirements to end the wars over what is now northern Chile:
- Chile must pay off Peru. Done.
- Chile must maintain a transportation link between the Arica port and Bolivia. This was originally a railroad but is now a highway. Our guide said that over 70% of the products coming thru the port are for Bolivia, as they also get to move product here without fees.
- Finally, Chile must mount a “Christ of Peace” statue on the Morro.
It was from the Morro that I took the pictures are the start of this post. Here’s another view of the city. Notice how the desert hills bisect the growing city. These guys are going to have to be really careful with water.
Next, we have two sea days before arriving at Coquimbo.