Our dealer's store, cleverly
concealed as a florist.
First stop, after breakfast on patio overlooking the Pacific!,
was a trip into Arica. Getting to grips with the Basher, as Ness has
named our jeep-truck-monster, in traffic proved quite easy. It’s big
though. No luck finding a parking space at first. Eiffel’s iron
church looks colourful in the main square – it’ll keep for later.
Finally gathered that the handpainted signs for “Estacionamiento
$300/hora” are Arica’s equivalent of NCP’s!
Trying to find the Tourist Info, Sernatur, we asked the doorman
at an office block – he asked us to follow him, and then walked us
into the bank inside, down the backstairs - I thought at first it
was his way of showing us the door, the back door that is. But he
carried on and almost walked us all the way into the Sernatur
office. Inside a tiny office – 3 desks. Picked on the older looking
woman as I figured she might know most. She spoke fluent French,
having lived near Lausanne for 18 years.
We walked out with a few more maps and booklets and a
recommendation to visit the Azapa valley. She also gave us counsel
for our visit to PN Lauca in a few days: drink water, don’t eat
much, and chew coca leaves if you do start to feel unwell. And some
suggestions for local shopping and eating – the cynic in me tends to
think these would either be: a) the places she sends all the
tourists to, or b) owned and run by her cousins, grandparents,
friends.
But we did decide to seek out the market she told us about. First
I thought it simply consisted of the small street stalls and the
guys selling fish/eels? from plastic white buckets – must find out
what they are.
Then we found the market, through a small passage into a large
covered area with stalls, hemmed in tightly, selling veggies (lots
of avocados), and small “cafetarias”. At a stall we bought some
water, and I asked again for “hojas de coca”. Before we went into
the market I asked one of the fish-sellers. “No, you can’t get coca
leaves anywhere here.” But at the stall where we bought the water
the old boy’s wife suddenly got off her stool in the corner and went
over to the flower stall across the “aisle” and then beckoned us.
With her help we procured two little plastic bags of what looks
like bayleaves (they may very well turn out to be just that!) As we
left the market I was proudly telling Ness that “I bought some
really good shit!”
The town centre feels friendly, people going about their business
shopping, talking. It’s got that middle-American feel to it, not
unlike Salta but less threatening, not threatening at all in fact.
Next we headed out of the town centre towards the Azapa valley.
Glad to have the extra height that Basher affords us – don’t mess
with us! All around, except for the immediate stretches of land
either side of the road, is brown. Brown hills, brown stones, brown
sand. High rugged hills stretching away on either side as far as we
can see. The town buildings give way to agricultural buildings as we
move inland.
Nothing, a lot of nothing.
Geoglyphs
Whatsisname looking over the citizens of Arica
Taking a turning off to the right at about km.7, we start to
leave the fertile central part of the valley behind. A bit later the
road becomes a dirt track, quite wide. Time for Basher to start
showing what he’s worth I hope! Buildings thin out even more, and
after a short while we’re driving along a road which is hard to
distinguish from the rocks and sand around us.
Wooden posts here and there are the only sign, and the tracks left
by other vehicles. Small primitive cabins, no bigger than portaloos,
constructed out of bits of flotsam and jetsam, on either side, but
some even have little curtains behind the cracked panes of glass.
What are these constructions? Who uses them, and for what? Out here,
in the middle of nowhere.
It’s amazing how quickly we have left behind the inhabited world.
Now there is no-one around us, no-one in sight, and we carry on.
Seems safe so far, although I am worried about what we’d do if
something went wrong with the car – we don’t seem to have a spare
wheel anywhere. The track starts to get even rougher, now there are
not even any of the portaloos around us. Then the “road” ends
abruptly, with a drop on our “starboard” and in front of us, and an
incline of brown sand on our left. Time to turn back. Hairy moment
as we do so – I’m aware that, even in Basher, it would be all too
easy to get totally stuck in the sand here. Carefully, using
Basher’s L4 drive, we manage to turn round. Heart pounding, trying
not to let on to Ness, we drive back.
The views looking back are even more impressive, i.e. looking
back towards where Arica & the Azapa valley ought to be – except
they are nowhere to be seen. We take it slowly, taking a few
pictures on the way. This is what we have come to see really, not
the museums and geoglyphs (which were the excuse for the trip). Both
in good spirits – good!
As we come back to the furthest lying farmhouses we pick up a
middle-aged couple who ask us for a lift. Find out this place is
called Alto Ramirez. They give us some more info about
where to
drive, what’s being grown in the fields around us (maize, olives,
tomatoes). Dropped them off at the main road and, after a minor
misunderstanding about which way we should head, we continue along
the main road.
We turn right a few kms. further and follow a track between
farms, eventually sighting the geoglyphs. Picture, for the books.
The road ends at a farm a bit further on so we turn round and end up
back at the main road.
We carry on up, through the central bit, which gets narrower as
we continue. Here and there we pass a school, numbered. Then we
drive through San Miguel de Azapa, a small village, but the “big
town” by these standards. There’s a police control, duana, at the
entrance to the village. We must have doubled back at some point,
trying to find the local archaeological museum.
There’s a small shack selling bebitas just opposite the museum.
Two more turistas here – aargh, Germans! We have water & coke, plus
local (purple) olives. The Germans are driving to Putre today and
are driving down to Santiago – they don’t look the type though. Some
chat with the shack-owner and buy biscuits to have something to
nibble on.
Then we visit the museum. It is small and a bit stuffy, to be
expected, but very good all the same. The mummies are minuscule –
are these real people? Apparently they are. Macabre.
A group of school-children enters as we are halfway through. All
in unifform red-white-blue uniforms. They liven the dead place up –
it needed it! Ness is taking her time so I carry on, ignoring the
young couple we saw on our flight from SCL to ARI. The central room
has a gigantic olive press (C18-20), which was still in operation
until 1956. As I’m reading about it in the guide I’m approached by
one of the kids who asks me about the olive press. I start telling
him that it’s an olive press, dah dah dah, 1956 (had some trouble
with that in Spanish!), and in the blink of an eye I’ve got twenty
munchkins around me asking me questions, what’s this, what’s that,
what are these rocks for? The rocks aren’t in the guidebook so I
have no idea. Still, don’t feel I can let them down or ignore them
so I start talking about the other piece on display. Turn for help
to their schooltrip guide – “es una visita de escuela, sí?” “Sí.”,
shrugs her shoulders, leaves me to it. Make an exit for the visitors
shop when the kids attention is elsewhere.
Forgot to mention: before we visited the museum our Plan “A” was
to cross to the Valle de Lleuta but the road looked like hard work.
Could have been fun but I doubt it. Very glad with hindsight we
didn’t attempt it – would have probably taken us 2-3 hours just to
cross the ridge.
Continue up the valley, which now starts to get very narrow and
even poorer. We pass another school. Two little schoolgirls further
down the road, we give one of them a lift, she was called “Shirley”
(or the pronounced equivalent) and we dropped her off at the very
last house, past km.40. The road then become a rough track again,
rocks looming over us on our left, and seemingly no way of turning
back. We don’t know what lies ahead, if anything, so we reverse back
and eventually find a spot to turn. Then it’s an easy drive back to
Arica. In parts the road is half-covered in sand, from the rockfalls.
Reminds me, when we turned round after our first “excursion”,
beyond Alto Ramirez, we noticed a sign saying “don’t go beyond this
point”, on our way back!
Back in Arica we decide to take a detour to the big statue of
Christ on the cliffs overlooking Arica. At the top there are a car
park, museum & some statues. Something about the battle between
Chile & Peru over Arica. Chileans won. Now there are a big bronze
Christ figure and some commemorative plaques to generals from the
battles. Not much else.
Ness freaked me out walking close to the edge of the cliff. Birds
of prey, vultures of some kind, circling above and below us along
the cliff. Drive back down, through the poorer shanty-like parts of
town. Eiffel’s church is now closed so we just head back to the
hotel. Drinks on the terrace, dinner in the restaurant, rather than
heading into town – we’re both feeling tired, despite having spent
most of the day in the car. And now… bed! (to sleep off the PS’s!)
