Arica Chile

Arica – we got here after all. The captain ran full speed all night and we arrived at noon, only eight hours late. All of the short tours ran on delay. Our long tour was canceled, so we bought a city tour.

The tour went around the town where we saw a church and the customs house that were designed by Eiffel, the same Eiffel who did the Eiffel tower. The rest of the town is interesting too.

This is the Atacama Desert where it didn't rain but once in 500 years. It is dry. There are no bushes on the hills. The only plants are in the dry river bottoms where there is some underground water. The population gets water from a pipe from a long way away. Water is expensive. Still, they plant a lot of plants and trees – Arizona kinds of things like oleanders, palms, and Palo Verde and even grass. Bougainvilla grows very well here and it is lovely.

Some water used to flow from a spring up the hill aways. They channeled the stream into a “water feature,” ponds and waterfalls and such, about half a block wide running down the whole length of the town. It was probably lovely until the spring dried up. Now it is a public area with meeting spaces and walking paths. It is still pretty nice, considering.

The main crop seems to be olives, which they have been growing here since 1530, only 40 years after Columbus. They also grow tomatoes and other vegetables. At the museum there was an old olive grinder and press. The grinder was a single wheel “arrastre,” a big vertical stone mill wheel turned in a basin by a mule. The olives were ground to a mush and then taken to the press. The beam on the press was about 40 feet long and 2 feet thick – an entire tree. The mush was pressed and the oil comes out. That it the “first cold press,” then they add hot water and go at it again repeatedly, each batch getting poorer in quality. When the hot water quits working, they nowadays use solvent. I am not sure what the “extra virgin” rating means.

There is a big white spot on the hillside. Four tour guides gave four answers as to what it was: Diatomite, nitrate, salt, or lime. Take your pick or provide your own.

We saw the “geoglyphs.” These are placements of stone on the east facing hillsides in the shape of men, llamas, snakes, etc. They think they are over 4,000 years old.

The mummies are over 5,000 years old. That is older than the Egyptian mummies. There were a couple on display in the museum. Other sites here are dated at 15,000 years. That plays havoc with the previous single land bridge crossing theory of populating America.

The people here are more of Peruvian and Bolivian ancestry, so they are shorter and darker than Chileans from further south. Actually this area was Peru and Bolivia until a war in 1880 that was won by Chile. The peace settlement in 1929 established the owner as Chile. Peru and Bolivia still are not happy about it, particularly Bolivia, which lost its access to the sea. Chile maintains 30,000 troops here in Arica just in case the Peruvians or Bolivians want to try to get it back.

The tour guide today would talk about Pinochet. He said it was a mixed bag – economically good, bad on human rights, that would be the 3,000 disappeared. That is over with.

Altogether I really like this town.