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Iquique

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19 reviews of Iquique

Ideal for doing something out of the ordinary

Iquique is an ideal for doing something out of the ordinary. It has the International Free Zone (ZOFRI) for shoping, several beaches (Cavancha and Brava) only 50m. from the hotels, a Casino, and a large expanse of parks and amusements areas for children, the Plaza Arturo Prat, the Historical Museum, the historic buildings protected by bylaws, a very special market, and a wonderful fair in the eastern part of the city. Out on Cerro Dragon, you can go paragliding, an ideal way to get from the heights down to the beach. Once down, you can visit the tourist places like the oasis of Pica, the Pintados

Geoglyphs, the traditional little village of La Tirana, the Saltpeter offices of Santa Laura and Humberstone, which once provided much wealth to the north of Chile.
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Sands and Nitrates

Iquique, that ghostly Chilean metropolis, lies gingerly at the intersection of the Atacama and the Pacific. The city with its ornate buildings and wooden boardwalks played a vital role in instigating the War of the Pacific (1879-84) where Chile warred against, and was ultimately victorious over, Bolivia and Peru.

When you drive through Northern Chile, past the interminable sand and dust, and come upon this desert city, it does feel like a mirage. Apartments rise confidently from the sand like giant monoliths. The rich gamble at the ocean-side Casino; tanned surfers, boards underarm, charge out into the sea. Kids practice their moves in the derelict skate-park; people work-out in make-shift gyms on the Pacific’s atmospheric, Mars-looking beaches next to shoe-less soccer matches and children chasing after low-flying kites. The courageous para-glide from Iquique’s towering dunes, sheer mountains of sand. Packs of dogs roam the circular streets, chasing a collective or two full of uniformed children trying to get to school. Colorful homes teeter on the dunes’ banks, sand blown across the kitchen floor. The sun glares down. It hasn't rained in a year. Sprinklers struggle to water a brownish piece of grass. Clouds enter the endangered species list.


Why should such a place exist?

Two words: Sodium Nitrate. Also known as “white gold,” sodium nitrate is a key component of fertilizers and explosives. The mining of nitrates dominated the economy of the Atacama for the second half of nineteenth century and spurred the development of companies, towns, road, railways and other infrastructure in the region. It also led to war.

Chile owned several mining companies in the Bolivian port of Antofagasta. When in 1878 the Bolivian general Hilaron Diaz raised the tax on the companies’ export, the Chilean government promptly refused resulting in the Bolivian government embargoing the company’s machinery. Chile retaliated by invading Antofagasta; Bolivia declared war on Chile. Peru had a mutual defense treaty with Bolivia and they too went to war against Chile.

The war raged on the driest place on earth, a land of pampas, volcanoes, sand and salt flats. The dramatic Andes blocked Bolivia’s access to the coast. Ports proved crucial for transporting soldiers and goods. Bolivia had no navy, Peru a small one. Chile had an impressive merchant fleet improving their transport capabilities. Peru and Bolivia had larger armies but they could not mobilize or supply their troops; their largely indigenous population remained divorced from the national community and indifferent from the international conflict.

In 1879, Chile won two major naval battles. Off the coast of Iquique, the Peruvian ironclad ship, Huaascar, rammed and sank the Chilean ship, Esmeralda. Before sinking, Captain Arturo Prat leaped on the Huaascar and was shot and killed. Peru eventually lost its ship, the Independencia, but Prat’s martyrdom was Chile’s main victory: his sacrifice became a powerful patriotic symbol that reverberates to this day. The Prat name adorns many buildings and streets in Iquique today. By October, Peru had surrendered its Huaascar and Pilcomayo ships and had lost its entire navy. By 1880, Chile had won the land battles of Tacna and Arica securing its annexation of that valuable piece of coast and its nitrate-rich hinterland. Bolivia lost its coast and today remains landlocked.

An increased demand for nitrate coincided with the Chilean acquisition of the mines. Between 1886 and 1889 nitrate production doubled from one million to two million metric tons. Iquique blossomed during the nitrate boom. The historic center’s Georgian buildings and the Baquedano’s wooden sidewalks all date from this time. Iquique had a cosmopolitan character as well attracting workers and investors from all corners of the globe.

By the eve of the First World War, Nitrate had busted. Mining towns became ghost towns overnight. Prospectors scoured the Atacama for alternative resources; Iquique re-branded itself as a fishing port.

Today, Iquique’s livelihood remains fastened to extraction industry; today, it is mostly copper.

An image of Iquique always lingers on my consciousness. I climb the steep roads past small tiendas, Chilean flags and cement foundations. The houses are less sturdy, more fragile and basic, the higher along the dunes you trudge. In Iquique, a real relationship between poverty and altitude exists. A series of electrical towers falls down the dune’s slopes. A stray dog chews at a bag of garbage. I stop after a few minutes at a clear vantage point. The city unfolds below me as if it were a rug I had just laid. The Pacific sparkles in the distance.

The city defies the odds and I love it for that. Watching the growing city beat back the advancing sand with the ferocity of a lioness, I think that Iquique should not be. The wind blows across the dunes imprinting fine and crisp ripples as if the sands were waves. Through the cruelty of booms and busts, the nearsightedness of selfish investors, worker massacres, tsunamis and earthquakes, the city stays defiant. The kaleidoscopic houses challenge the unrelenting brown; people pour their hearts and souls into growing anything green. Anything that will survive. Anything that will endure. Families sweep-out the ubiquitous sand only to have it return. They endure the frigid nights, and scorching hot days. Highways tame the leviathan-esque dunes who appear ready to swallow the city whole. Iquique is determined.

Triumphant and Tragic.

Across from me a teenage boy in white shorts and a red t-shirt sits on the sand, chin resting on his knees, and overlooks his city. He sees the waters pounding Brava’s shores; he sees the city and the sand interlace and inter-mesh like two hands sliding into each other, interlocking. He sees the beauty, the danger and the challenge. He sees his home.

That picture, part melancholic and part resilient, is Iquique.
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