Day 61: Arica, Siempre Arica

Day 61
Today I'm in: Arica, Chile


Santiago was coated in a thick layer of frost and fog when I got to the airport this morning, which meant we had to be de-iced before takeoff.  When we climbed above the fog, the Andes, covered in snow, were visible to the east.  The flight up to Arica took almost three hours, and about an hour after leaving Santiago the fog and the clouds broke up and the terrain below took on a much drier and more hostile appearance.


Arica is literally as far north as you can go in Chile. I'm only a few hundred miles from La Paz in Bolivia, and as we turned off the runway at the airport today I was looking over the airport fence into Peru.  It's that close.  This end of Chile was wrestled from Peru and Bolivia during the War of the Pacific in the 1870s, during a series of battles that cost Bolivia her coastline and cost Peru the city of Arica, then one of its largest ports.  Chile picked up some of the most copper- and nitrate-rich areas in South America (something that's paying dividends today) and an excellent all-weather port city to boot.

Pride and passion seem to figure prominently up here.  Central Arica is dominated by El Morro, a huge rocky headland that looms over town and juts out into the Pacific.  It was the site of one of the fiercest and most decisive battles in the War of the Pacific, one which delivered Arica squarely into Chilean hands.  The Chileans are immensely proud of this and, to make sure the Bolivians and Peruvians don't forget who's boss here, have erected an enormous flag atop El Morro.  A line from a poem by Pedro Ariel Olea - "Arica, always Arica, great is my loyalty to you" - is spelled out in rocks along El Morro as well.


Arica also goes by the moniker "City of Eternal Spring."  It's true that it's far, far warmer up here than it was Santiago, but 'spring' isn't exactly what comes to mind when surveying the landscape here.  This is the northern edge of the Atacama Desert, one of the driest spots on earth, and beyond that is the Andean altiplano, where rain is a less-than-frequent occurrence as well.

There are just under 200,000 people in Arica, and with more than a few high-rise apartment towers and some sprawling suburbs it feels like a city of some substance.  I had originally hoped to drive up to Parque National Lauca on the altiplano and spend a night up there.  Once I did a bit more research, though, I learned that I'd need at least two full days in Lauca just to get acclimatized and avoid altitude sickness.  So Arica it is.

There's not a lot to see in Arica.  The downtown area is nice and compact and centers around the Paseo 21 de Mayo, a pedestrianized street lined with cafes and bars and most of the same Chilean chain stores I found in Santiago and Valparaiso (my favorite is an electronics store called "ABCDins.")  One of the more notable attractions is the Iglesia San Marcos (St. Mark's Church), which was designed by none other than Alexandre Gustave Eiffel, of Parisian tower fame.  Fittingly, the entire church is built from cast iron, like the Eiffel Tower, that's been painted.  Eiffel also designed the former waterfront Customs House, which is now marooned inland thanks to landfill projects that expanded the port and has been converted rather cleverly into an amphitheater and performing arts center.  The only occupant when I visited was a sleeping stray dog - Chile has a huge population of urban stray dogs, most of which were turned loose from homes and are consequently very tame and friendly.  They seem well cared for - a lot of shops have adopted them as mascots and keep them fed and watered - and it's kind of nice to have a dog or two trotting along with you while you go sightseeing.

After getting settled at the hotel and doing some sightseeing I stopped by a cafe for lunch and tried a miniature platter of lomo de lo pobre ("poor man's steak"), a Chilean dish consisting of steak, a fried egg, rice and french fries.  This was a small plate - some restaurants serve it on a dish so large you need both hands to carry it - but I figured I should try it before I jump in with both feet.  It wasn't too bad, especially when chased with a pisco sour (another bone of contention between Chileans and Peruvians, who each claim it as their national drink.)

It took just a few hours to get acquainted with Arica, which has left me wondering what the hell I'm going to do with a full day here tomorrow.  I've saved a few activities (climbing El Morro, checking out the beach south of town) but in general I suspect tomorrow's going to be a fairly lazy day.