Arica, Chile - Pt 1

Today we were in port in Arica, Chile. Arica is Chile’s northernmost city, only 11 miles south of Peru. It is an extremely busy and important port for a large region of South America. Arica is warm and sunny the year around, getting literally no rainfall. We took an excursion today and our guide (age 45) told us that she has never seen rain in her entire life. Now that’s dry!

Our first stop was at Poblado Artesanal, a local handicraft market, although since Covid there sadly wasn’t much going on there. We mainly just walked around and listened to our tour guide talk and I snapped a few photos. 

 

first stop - Poblado Artesanal

tourist with camera

cotton grows on trees! (and comes in different colors, even purple!?!)

Ronnie picked some cotton

chapel, Pablado Artesenal

From there we traveled to a surprisingly fertile valley in the Atacama Desert. The Azapa Valley is a strip of green in the midst of the world’s driest desert. Olives are the primary crop grown there but I also photographed bananas, mangoes and pomegranates as we walked through an olive grove. We were shown how olives are prepared in brine and aged for over a year until they start to ferment. We were able to sample them in various stages and of course they had offered olives and olive oil and a few crafts at the end of the tour. The story is that back in the 1600's even the most important guests were only allowed 3 olives. I had more than 3, but then Ronnie is not a olive person so I guess I ate his! HA!

 

olives on tree

olives and water begin to ferment in huge vats

we sampled these - very salty but good!

sorting process

different colors depending on how long they stayed on tree

olives products for sale

After visiting the olive tree farm, we were driven to the San Miguel de Azapa Archaeological Museum where we saw a collection of mummies that supposedly predate Egypt’s by over 3,000 years. So many people died there from being poisoned by their water. Eventually it was discovered that the reason so many people (especially children and babies) were dying was because of arsenic in their water. Where did the arsenic come from? It came from the erupting volcano. It was interesting but of course very sad. 

 

banana tree

purple tear-shape flower contains blossoms

The museum was interesting but unfortunately it was not air conditioned and we were all hot and sweaty and ready to get back to the air conditioned bus!

 

olive press

antique loom

map showing Arica's location

mummified family, 2000 years before Jesus Christ

When we arrived back at the port we had a nice surprise and I will write about that tomorrow. We have now crossed 5 time zones and we are 3 hours ahead of you at home. The cabin stewards are very good about changing the clock in our room with every time change.