Wednesday - January 20, 2010
[64] Iquique, nitrate factories of Santa Laura and Santiago Humberstone, Ariguilda, Puchuldiza, to Ollagüe [border Bolivia]
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Written by Karin-Marijke
Written by Coen
by Karin-Marijke on Suite101.com
The nitrate factories of Santa Laura and Santiago Humberstone
For a couple of days Playa Lobito has been our home. It is situated along the Pacific Ocean, a bit south of the city of Iquique, and offers great views of the 800 metres' high dunes on the east – where the Dakar Rally competitors came tearing down – and the Pacific Ocean on the west, with fabulous sunsets. From the cliff where we are camping we look down onto the beach which is filled with bush camping Chileans who have made the beach their home for the summer holidays. It is seven thirty in the morning and it is still peacefully quiet down there. The tents are shrouded in a thick mist that typifies the early mornings of this coast. Time has come to leave this lovely spot and to hit the road again.
We climb the dunes and return to Ruta 5, the Pan Americana. Just before we hit the highway we visit two museums of nitrate factories: Oficina Santa Laura and Oficina Santiago Humberstone. Both factories were constructed in 1872, closed their doors in 1960, were declared Historic Monuments in 1971 and received UNESCO World Heritage Status in 2005.
the ghost towns of Humberstone and Santa Laura
Both locations are impressive testimonies to a bygone era – the nitrate boom around the 1900s. Located in the middle of the desert the place is surrounded by clean silence, at times interrupted by a soft breeze. With the breeze come the squeaking of hinges, the creaking of wooden panels or a sudden slam of a corrugated metal roof. Santa Laura is impressive for the rusty remains of its large factory, which whispers of prosperous times. Around the factory lie the remains of the narrow-gauge railway over which the raw material called caliche was transported. The dark-coloured chunks were mined in the Atacama Desert and the nitrate was extracted by a process of steaming and drying. The nitrate was popular in Europe and the US, where it proved a good fertiliser. When in WW I synthetic fertilisers were invented, the nitrate industry collapsed and nowadays ghost towns are all that remain.
old graveyard in Pisagua | it's forbidden to steal the wood of the old railway station
Humberstone is unique in the sense that a large part of the original town still stands and walking here is like entering a time warp. The crumbling houses, the restored church and theatre, the remains of the basketball field, and especially the old swimming pool – constructed from the cast iron of a shipwreck in the port of Iquique – give a good impression of how people lived in those days.
beach of Iquique | clock tower | guano makes a decent income | posing with the Land Cruiser
Geoglyphs at Ariquilda and the hot geysers of Puchuldiza
After our visit to Santa Laura and Humberstone we drive north on Ruta 5 and take a turn-off, where an off-road leads us into the desolate Atacama Desert. Amidst a flat area of grey and black stones is a small oasis: a couple of tamarugo trees and shrubs that provide enough shade to make it a good camping spot. Silence and a black, starry sky reign. A sign leads us into the Quebrada Aroma, a canyon where nothing grows at all, but maybe it is exactly this bareness that makes the area so overpowering. A narrow track winds up and down along vertical walls that change colours from crimson to brown, from dark grey to copper green.
narrow roads at the altiplano | Pachamama shrine | llamas at the altiplano | big tyres
This canyon seems utterly uninhabitable, but in prehistoric times people lived here. Especially around Ariquilda rocks are covered in geoglyphs that are a testimony to the lives of these nomads. Among the geoglyphs are many animal motifs and easy to recognise are lizards, scorpions and four-legged mammals – I assume llamas. At the bottom of the canyon runs a narrow river with clear, murmuring water and from above it looks as if a large worm twists through the canyon. In other places the river widens and becomes a swampy wetland, turning a large part of the valley green. The air contains mainly dust; dust that penetrates anything. With the wind at our back it overtakes the car and enters through the open windows and all other holes the Land Cruiser has because of rust. At the end of the day everything inside the car, including us, is covered in a layer of grey.
The path seems to wind along the slopes forever without an end in sight. Without a proper map we continue north and hope for the best. Somewhere we should exit the canyon again, shouldn't we? But where? It feels like driving in the Zogros Mountains of Iran, where we felt just as lost but enjoyed the scenery nevertheless.
old houses in Iquique | pelicans | the old tramway | The Pan American Highway
We climb higher and reach an altitude of 2500 metres. In the past it must have been wetter here than it is nowadays. There are many tall cactuses and some huge eucalyptus trees. Many have died. On the steep slopes the Aymará Indians have constructed narrow terraces to cultivate their crops. We see the crops but not the people. Where are they? We pass three ancient villages: Jaiña, Allailla en Chiapa. Especially the second is nothing but a 'ceremonial' village, as it is called here: the inhabitants have moved to the coast or Iquique for jobs and only return for festivities or holidays.
Chiapa is larger. The only people awake appear to be military who have been stationed here because Sunday is election day [today is Wednesday]. Twenty soldiers to supervise twenty families properly casting their mandatory vote seems like overkill and is a typical form of hidden unemployment. Coen admires the military vehicles, especially a Hummer. More soldiers come outside and join the chat, it is not so common here to receive attention from visitors, let alone a foreigner.
sunset at the Pacific Ocean | empty ceremonial village | harbour of Iquique | Pacific Ocean
The geysers of Puchuldiza are located at 4200 metres. The daily afternoon wind of the Altiplano is cold and comes howling across the plain. The thermal bath mainly feels warm because my head sticking out above the edge of the bath almost freezes with cold. Not much is needed to get an ear infection here. Or a lung infection, I figure while getting out of the bath and trying to get dressed, which is almost impossible because my fingers appear to be frozen. But after a day of eating dust the bath is refreshing nevertheless.
Early in the morning the wind has died down and the surroundings are mesmerizingly beautiful. A lonely plateau. Bare mountains, a couple of grazing llamas and spouting geysers. During winter the steam freezes, we have seen extraordinary pictures of it. Now it is summer, but still the Land Cruiser had ice on the inside of the windows this morning. Even at such altitude, and even without a functioning heater, we sleep well in our isolated home on wheels.
geoglyphs at a hill slope | Puchuldiza thermal bath | Puchuldiza geyser | can' get lost here...
The pecking order of navigation systems
"I am ready for some coffee and an alfajor [type of cookie]," Coen says. "This excellent tarmac road continues straight ahead so I'll manage with a frisbee under the alfajor," he replies after I commented that an alfajor made of puff pastry is not so practical to eat when driving. I crawl to the rear of the car to get the coffee and cookies and while sipping our coffee the tarmac indeed makes for smooth driving.
"Hé, Mamiña. We don't want to go there at all," I remark. "Have we missed a turn-off?"
"No, there was only a road leading to some mines," Coen replies, "the sign said nothing else."
So we continue to Mamiña to see if there is a short-cut leading from there to our main road. Yes, there is, "A three-hour drive over a horrible track," the police officer enlightens us. "It's better to return on the same road which is entirely tarmac, which will take you an hour. And yes, you should have taken that main road towards the mines," he finishes his instructions.
"See, that's the result of sending your navigator for coffee – you miss a turn-off," I remark with a smile – feeling an urge to bring this to Coen's attention. You see, the turn-off is absolutely clear to the eyes of a map-reading navigator. But to the eyes of a GPS worshipper matters are not that simple. The route we are looking for, on my map clearly a main road, is not mentioned in the holy of holies. So it can't be the right road. So the GPS worshipper sticks to the minor road, leaving the navigator in the dark while she is getting coffee in the rear in the car.
So we drive 150 kilometres for nothing, through the most uninteresting landscape we have come across these past two weeks. I triumph in silence [mainly in silence!]. Often the GPS overrules my suggestions with regard to directions, but for the time being I have regained my place and importance as navigator. For a moment the GPS has lost a bit [okay, only a little bit] of its holiness and the map and I have regained a few points in the pecking order of navigation systems.
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