Travels in North Chile - Iquique and Humberstone (Part 3)!

100% Iquiqueño!

To complete our loop in Northern Chile and the Altiplano we went to Iquique, a thriving city around 4 hours south of Arica, about 16 or so hours from La Paz, by bus. Iquique, like Arica, is a coastal city hemmed in by the milky coffee brown desert. It feels considerably wealthier than Arica however, which is almost certainly because it's a popular beach destination for wealthy Chilean and other South American tourists, and because it has a spectacular history and so attracts government funding for restoration.

sunset on the way down into Iquique

Iquique's history is bound up with the Chilean nitrate industry. As we mentioned in our Part 1 post on Arica, Northern Chile is, among other things, rich in saltpetre (sodium nitrate) - used in gunpowder and fertilizers. For a while Chilean nitrate kept Europe in food produce. The immediate evidence of this formerly wealthy industry is the, largely well restored, nitrate era architecture in the city - houses and municipal buildings funded by the wealthy nitrate barons who made and lost their fortunes here.

As we've mentioned before, the nitrate extraction industry in Chile was scuppered by the invention of synthetic nitrates in Germany during the First World War. It's a little known (at least to us) fact that the Allied war effort in WWI was reliant on British nitrate production in Chile, while Germany would not have been able to continue the war without developing synthetic alternatives. There are spectacular historical relics in the desert near Iquique which give some idea of how huge the industry was. A site called Humberstone is a largely intact and partially restored workers' town about 45 kilometres from Iquique. The tours from Iquique also take in the processing plants at nearby Santa Laura which are less extensive but very spectacular and eerie.  

houses in Humberstone

It's particularly strange to see the telephone lines, which must once have buzzed with activity, now still standing but ultimately going nowhere. 

phone lines to nowhere at Santa Laura

the derelict processing plant at Santa Laura

from afar

nitrato natural chileno

light fitting

These sites also used to be linked to Iquique by train, driving through the desert you can occasionally see random bits of track and derelict buildings used by the railway.

like this one, which someone has made into a person!

while we're out here - Anna in the desert

desert and big sky

back to the point - Struan on the Humberstone steam train

the municipal swimming pool

The "salitreras" were largely funded by British investment and run by British managers. Humberstone is named after the most famous British plant manager James "Santiago" Humberstone.

the theatre

seats in the theatre

seats in the school-house

There is also a small museum in Humberstone, located in the General Store, where various small finds are kept. Not many years ago all of the stuff that was left behind when the last inhabitants moved away was just left lying around until the authorities decided it might one day be considered of historical importance...

school books

Anna in front of the "Caja" (cash till) in the General Store

botilleria

At Santa Laura they have partially restored the interior of the foreman's house to give an idea of the relative luxury here. It's difficult when walking around the ruins to picture how comfortable life must have been, although the phone lines, electrical infrastructure, theatre, swimming pool etc all hint at the lifestyle. This was once a wealthy place, even if now you have to imagine it. 

restored interior of foreman's house

And here's an old photo that we bought from one of the antiques sellers in the square in Iquique, all very civilised out in the desert:

Humberstone is seen as a tourist attraction to coo at with fascination, like a sort of Chilean Pompeii. There are slow moving but definitely ongoing plans for a hotel on the site (in the building of the town's original hotel) which we think would really spoil the feel of the place which, despite all the tourists, lies in its desolation. Humberstone was only finally abandoned in the 1960's, and it feels strange that what happened here affected real people not so long ago - there must be plenty of people alive today who actually lived there when they were young. What's even stranger is it's happening elsewhere now, take Detroit for example - though at least they are getting a statue of Robocop...

Before we head to the beach, here's a few other pics of Iquique:

the white clock tower in the square - the symbol of the city

Anna goofin' around in some street art

It's beach time!

colourful brols

a shop on a bicycle

the blue blue Chilean sky

Another nice little trip out of Iquique is to the oasis village of Pica - famed for its mangoes and some hot spring pools. The former are very appetising, the latter not very tempting in reality - let's say they're a little too popular.

just too many people, imagine if all the kids peed in there...

and Pica has a well-restored church

church and tower separated

life-size wax model of the Last Supper - a bit of a shocker, but better than this (link here)

A great surprise in Iquique was stumbling across this fantastic colourful parade all the way along the beach road. These were bands and dancing groups from all of the indigenous communities around Iquique. 

the wiphala - the altiplano flag, symbol of the indigenous people of the altiplano

panpipes of course

wow!

Here's a couple of vids to give a better idea:

Next post we'll finish our tour of Northern Chile and the Altiplano with our visit to San Pedro de Atacama, an amazing indigenous pueblo located on the edge of a salt flat just before the desert becomes the pre-Cordillera. For now, we'll leave you with the beautiful Iquique sunset, and some fab dogs...

Chao!