Arica, in northern Chile, is only 18 km from the border it shares with Peru. Actually Arica was part of Peru until 1880, when it was taken over by Chilean Forces in the 'War of the Pacific'. It lays at the edge of the Atacama Desert, a lunar landscape that has never seen precipitation in human history. It is said to be the dryest place on earth.
Arica, also called surprisingly the City of Eternal Spring, used to be the major seaport around 1545 to export the riches from the Silver Mines in Potosi, Bolivia. Thousands of unfortunate miners, most only surviving the conditions for a maximum of ten years before succumbing to the effects of poisonous mine gases combined with unbelievably cruel treatment. Drake, Cavendish and Simon de Cortes visited here during their pirating and buccaneering careers. Legend has it, that Drake's 10 billion dollar treasure of silver, gold and jewels is buried somewhere near Arica.
Arica had it's shares of earthquakes (8.5 on the Richter Scale) and tsunamis around 1868, which killed between 15,000 and 25,000 people.
Today it is a bustling mid sized city, with little colonial architecture, but two buildings designed by Gustave Eiffel. One is the Customs Building near the Port. I had to dodge flocks of roosting Cormorants, who deposited their guano freely from the high palm trees surrounding the building onto lawns, benches and people below. I did not linger...
The other Eiffel creation is the cream and dark red coloured Iglesia San Marco de Arica. It is almost entirely built from iron. Both buildings were produced in the architect's Paris work-shops and then shipped across the Atlantic. How they got to this side of the continent - I don't know. But, Eiffel also designed Santiago's (Capital of Chile) airy railway station.
I hiked up Mount Morro, a steep and high mound/hill/mountain overshadowing the town. A bizarre Pinochet designed war memorial crowns the summit, which allows a sweeping vista over the town, harbour, plentyful white beaches and vast ochre mountains of desert as far as the eye can penetrate the perpetual coastal mist.
I strolled through the town's Peatonal, pedestrian district, bought some fresh Chilean cherries from a street vendor ($2.50 a kilo) and half a dozen colourful fresh Gerbera from another (S2.25) and treated myself to a refreshing Peruvian brewski. Sitting in the open air bistro, I watched the Latin world pass by, interspersed by the occasional shorts-and-baseball-cap clad tourist, and listened to a serenade by Spanish clad young Chilean men (mostly with long black curly locks) playing strangley formed mandolins, guitars and other string instruments and singing Chilean ballads of amor y mujeres.
