Arica is Chile’s northernmost city 12 miles south of the border with Peru with a population of nearly 230,000 people officially. It was our goal Wednesday when we got up about 150 miles south of the city on the PanAmerican Highway.
It was a vista point overlooking a rather attractive if forbidding series of canyons in the Atacama Desert. Rusty was ready arterial awful hour to go and have a look.
It wasn’t that early but it felt like it was and he was intent upon some smell wafting on the air.
It really does look like the pictures we’ve seen of the moon, and, despite the rumble of trucks in the highway nearby it was a peaceful spot.
We drove across the highway for a late breakfast and the scrambled eggs with ham were quite creamy and delicious. The Chilean bread is soft and not sweet and I like it. Layne had a giant mango smoothie and I had coffee. Twelve bucks; Chile is not a cheap low rent South American country.
Arica was founded in 1541 and when Spain was pushed out at the beginning of the 19th century Arica and Iquique were governed by Peru. With the War of the Pacific in 1879 going against them Bolivia lost Antofagasta and Cobija and lost access to the sea. Peru lost Iquique and Arica and Chile gained miles and miles of desert and several new ports.
We went to a vet listed on iOverlander as soon as we arrived in town at lunchtime. They gave Rusty his health and de-parasite certificate. He also got a new multiple parvo-distemper and everything vaccine and the total cost was eighty bucks but he’s worth it of course. Then I walked the certificate down the street to the Agriculture office where for $40 I got an export certificate for Peru. Some travelers sulk at the expense and engage in smuggling but I like to be above board and it’s is Rusty we’re talking about here.
They were very nice at the SAG office and issued the certificate in the door but it did take a couple of hours. In other towns we’ve done it and they tell us to come back tomorrow so this was pretty good.
Arica has some agricultural output in a couple of nearby valleys and they grow olives, of all things here like they do across the border around Tacna, Peru. But Arica is a duty free city and it is a port for Bolivia, the country that lost its access to the sea. It’s a prosperous area even though it doesn’t always look that way. Desert dust, a border town, and people down on their luck all drift into this place so it doesn’t always look too middle class.
But the city serves its purpose, to be useful: the gas station had showers, elderly clean and warm if not boiling hot. For $1.60 they are a bargain especially as they mean we don’t have to stay at one of the crappy dusty campgrounds.
So after Layne did her supermarket shopping and I walked Rusty we went looking for a place to sleep. We tried the waterfront parking lot outside the port and that ended up being a marching band practice area
So we drive ten miles to the airport where iOverlander said there was a place to park, supposedly gravel. They’ve upgraded it now and it’s a nice plat and very small parking lot.
Within sight of the border complex, above in a crappy picture. We’ll plan to cross to Peru on Friday. We last did that, coming here in October. Back we go:
