Moving on to Iquique

Sunday 23rd December 2007

We left San Pedro behind and headed towards Iquique which is further north on the coast.

As we ascended out of the basin where San Pedro is situated we came across a vicuna with her child. You can see from the photo how arid the surrounding landscape is.



We filled the car at Calama as petrol stations are few and far between in Chile.

Trucks at the petrol station loaded with some very big tyres, destined for the copper mine.

We passed Chuquicamata copper mine and took a picture of the huge, green slag heaps which dominate the town.

The black line behind the sign is the town.

Then it was back down to Ruta 5. The scale of things in Chile are completely alien to Europe where, even on the emptiest motorways, there are service stations every thirty miles or so. The next petrol station we passed was at Victoria which was 272 km from Calama.

We saw some more geoglyphs on the way but there were not as distinct as the ones at Chug Chug.

There are human figures on the hillside...honest!

Iquique has a tax free zone, and to get into the area you have to be checked out by customs. Nothing tells you what to do, but we saw other people parking their cars at the custom point and queueing at an office, where a solitary man in no particular rush examined drivers’ papers. We did not have the right paperwork and were despatched back to the car to look for them. He seemed interested in the fact that we were Ukrainian, as that is what it says on our car hire papers.

Eventually we got through and drove through more nitrate pampa, with lonely graveyards on hillsides, slowly being buried by the sand. The occasional sign tells you there was a nitrate “oficina” there once, and the dates when it operated. Apart from that, the landscape was bleak, with endless, bendless roads.

Finally at the colourful town of Pozo Almonte, we turned down the road to Iquique. The descent to the town is very steep, and there is a huge sand dune which looms ominously over Iquique. On the front there are signs which tell you the evacuation route if there is a tsunami.

Therefore it was of great relief to discover that our hotel is right on the beach, and we have a ground floor room. This is the view from our room.