Iquique (Norte Grande)

The next morning, I took a relatively short four-hour bus ride from Arica to Iquique.

I really cannot say enough about Iquique.  As we approached Iquique, I thought that, geographically speaking, it would be like any other beach city (basically, a coastal plain), but it is quite different in that it is situated directly between the ocean and a big plateau.  As we descended down the plateau, Iquique began peaking out from behind a huge sand dune, which I will soon learn is the biggest sand dune in the world, and on which I will later have the privilege of sand boarding.

When I got to the bus station, I decided to make the 1-mile trek to my hostel, which is really the best way to see the city.  The sidewalks were a bit rough, so I just used the nice smooth streets to roll my duffle bag, which I found much easier than the dirt streets of San Pedro.  Along the way I kept seeing Tsunami warning signs, which I guess was an omen to what was to come later that night.

As is part of my usual routine, once I checked into my hostel, I explored the city while at the same time attempting to book some tours of the surrounding areas.  I found that booking tours in Iquique was a bit more challenging than booking tours in the previous locales.  First, there were no English language tours to be found.  Second, certain tours were only operated on certain days.  And third, I would soon find out that all of the tour companies, while claiming to accept credit cards, tack on an additional 19% for the use of such cards.  Really, in effect, they do not accept credit cards, and I wanted to conserve my cash given my ATM situation.  Eventually, after storming out of one tour company because they wanted to charge me an additional 19% to use my AMEX (I felt a bit insulted), and really, I didn’t like the vibe there, I stumbled upon another tour company that had everything that I wanted, but still would charge me an additional 19% to use my AMEX.  I ended up paying them in cash, planning on replenishing that cash later that night.  So, I signed up for a historical/archeological tour the next day, and the Laguna Roja tour the following day.  I had heard so much about Laguna Roja, so that would really be the centerpiece of my tour in Iquique.

My tour book described Iquique as a dreary town, but I believe this to be a total mischaracterization of Iquique, which is everything but.It is always sunny there, and when I mean always, I mean always.   It serves as a haven for Santiagoans during the Summer, because of its constantly temperate and sunny climate.  Of course, it is right by the ocean as well.  Iquique has a street (where many of the tour companies, bars, and eateries can be found) that seems out of place for a Chilean beach town, but actually gives Iquique a lot of its character, with its Victorian style architecture.

 

Iquique has an awesome ocean front lined with new high-rise condominiums and hotels, playgrounds, and food stands.

In fact, my hostel was in a great beach-front location. I had a chance to stay at a hostel closer to the bus station, and I’m glad I opted not to do this.  At 15 bucks a day, even though this is considered expensive for a hostel, it was a great deal for me.  Again, I only need a bed, a shower, and Wifi.  Location is a plus.  

The beaches of Iquique have cool lava reefs that form nice little inlets/outlets and coves that can be explored, and that I did.  I could have spend all day on the reefs, but just didn't have the time.

So that night I did go out and search for an ATM that accepted AMEX.  Having eventually found an ATM booth that did accept AMEX (it was not that easy to find one that was open at 10pm), I entered it when I heard what I thought was someone frantically banging on the glass windows of the booth.  I opened the door to see what was going on.  There was no one, but the telephone poles and signs were swaying back and forth.  Turns out it was a 6.3 earthquake, which is large anywhere else, but it is business as usual here.  There were car alarms going off, but people were just going about their business.  After I completed my transaction at the ATM, I went outside, and I as I was walking towards the ocean, the thought did cross my mind as to what I would do if there was a tsunami.  The highlands are way too far to go to, so I was looking at various structures to climb on.  There were many, so faced with a wall of water coming at me (except for the 300 -foot ones you see in movies), I knew I would safe.  There would have been nothing that would stop me from climbing the nearest telephone pole like a monkey.

The next day, I went on an easy and relaxed tour to see geoglyphs (basically ancient carvings made in the sand) . . .

It is difficult to make out the geoglyphs in the picture, but I wanted a picture of what is, indeed, the driest place on Earth.  I was told that it this region has had .1mm of rainfall in the last 1000 years.  I do not know how they can measure .1mm of rainfall, but it is safe to say that, while I was in Iquique, there is still only 1mm of rainfall in that region in the last 1000 years. 

I also saw a ghost town by the name of Hammerstone, which used to be a nitrate mining town back in the day.

It was interesting town, and I found myself separated from the group, having wandered off to explore the town.  I later got a call from the tour guide, asking me why I had wandered off.  Now I have been asked this question many times since I was a little boy, and my answer has always been the same: “I do not have a good answer for that question?”  I did the same thing on the city tour in Santiago, and got chastised by the tour guide for it.  Out of 10 tours, I only wandered off from the group 2 times.  By my calculations, that is an 80 percent success rate.  You really cannot complain about that.

Later, we went to a place named “Pico,” where they had a natural geothermal pool. 

Even with my very high tolerance for germs (both immunological and psychological), there was no way I was going to go in that germ infested Petri dish.  I sat down and relaxed in a different area overlooking a pond into which that human soaked water fed.

I really didn't need that segment of the tour, but at least I made it back to the hostel just in time to see the sunset.

The hostel owner had also planned a BBQ, and when he asked me if I wanted to pitch in 4000CLP (around 6 bucks), I jumped at the chance, as I was starving.  Awesome deal.

The next day I woke up early (6am) for the Laguna Roja tour.  This is the one that I was looking forward to.  My guide with two other tourists (a 30 year-old couple from Santiago by the names Pedro and Carla) picked me up from the hostel.  This was the first tour I had where nobody spoke English.  Luckily, this tour was a sight-seeing tour and not an educational tour.

But Pedro and Carla were kind enough, using their phones, to translate the gist of what the guide was saying into English for me.

We would drive a couple hours on paved roads to a city, where we would have breakfast and get to feed an alpaca, which didn’t want anything to do with me until I showed him the baby bottle filled with milk.

We had to do some incredibly rough off-roading (to the point where I almost got knocked out by hitting my head a few times on the handle hold) for at least a couple more hours to get to Luguna Roja, but it was well worth it, as we were treated to this . . .

But, red was not the only color there.

The Laguna Roja spilled over into a river . . .

. . .  creating a rainbow effect on the bank of the river . . .

There was even a nice little green pool at the bottom . . .

. . . and then, out of nowhere, I was shot.

The End.

Nah, the story doesn’t stop there.

I was driven back to my hostel, so that I could do some things the next day that could actually kill me.

First, I decided to go way outside of my comfort zone, because I am deathly afraid of heights, and go paragliding (not parasailing).  The next morning, I reached deep into my duffle bag and, by chance, pulled out some tightie whities--not the color underwear that I wanted to wear that day, considering what I was about to do.  But I did make sure to go to the bathroom beforehand.  I was then picked up at my hostel and driven to the top of a giant hill overlooking the city . . .

. . . so I could do this . . .

It is difficult to see in the photo, but there are actually two makeshift crosses at the end of the take-off point.  Now I did not see any roads around there where these two people could have been killed in a roadside accident.  So the only conclusion that came to mind was that these two poor souls died in a horrific paragliding accident, the first one being the pilot, and the second one being a tourist.  But I dare not know for sure, so I opted not to even bring it up to my pilot.

Before I knew it, I was put in a jump suit and strapped to a harness.  The girl that went before had to abort her take-off for whatever reason, and I saw this as where the potential danger is.  The paragliding wing does not look like it is big enough to lift your body off the ground, let alone two bodies, but when it fills with air, you definitely feel the force, and I could definitely feel the force as it yanked by body up off the ground.  So I saw this as where most injuries occur as you can easily be dragged across the ground a few hundred yards.  We didn’t even get as far as running towards the take-off point before we had to let the wind out of the wing.  But the second time we were successful and we were on our way.  This was truly the first time ever that I had jumped off of something that could kill me if things went way wrong.  As we took off, I spotted the two crosses in my peripheral, and I had accepted my fate.

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It was a great experience, and I’m glad I survived it, but I will be happy to only do this once in my life.  Even though I might have or might have not appeared to relaxed, I was holding on for dear life to the point where my biceps were sore after.  I was afraid to move, and just grabbing the selfie-stick from the pilot was frightening, as I had to let go with one hand to grab it.  

I was the first one to land from our group of five, and I sat on the beach waiting for them to land.

Later that evening I went on another adventure in the form of some more sandboarding.  Just when I was getting the hang of it in San Pedro, it was over.  So I had to do some more sandboarding here.  Plus, I wanted to go to the biggest sand dune in the world from which I could see the city backlit by the sunset.  

And it did not disappoint.  I'm estimating that the sand dune was about 1000 feet high.

It was indeed a huge sand dune with a view of the city. The sand board instructor had set up three practice routes that I quickly went down, having been brought up to speed in San Pedro.
I then asked the instructor if I could go down the steep part of the dune, and he said "mas rapido."  I said that's okay.  The dune in San Pedro was just as steep.

So I did go down it, and it went well until the end.

That did actually hurt, but in a different way than snowboarding.  When you fall snowboarding, you tend to hit hard on the packed power or ice, and then slide.  You may get bruises and contusions.  When you fall sandboarding, the sand is softer.  However, it tends to grab when you hit.   So if you fall on your ass, it tends to pull muscle and dilate things that should not be dilated to that extent.

But that was my first run of the day, and the following runs went well.

After a few runs, I was actually very tired walking up the dune, and I waited until the sunset.

. . . and I ended up watching an awesome sunset from the biggest dune in the world.