Arid Arica, the Chinchorro Mummies and beaches
The northernmost city of Chile on the coast, Arica, is a jumble of broken glass, spray paint, and streets smelling of piss, which is semi-universal in Latin America. Arica has just one nice street that is converted into an outdoor mall having tiled walkway that is well-lit by stylish street lamps. After leaving the Schopdog Bar, walking back to the hotel, the side street is dark, holes in the cracked concrete sidewalk, honking cars racing by, narrow roads, buildings making continuous barricade for the entire block, dangling electrical lines, odd mixture of residences and little businesses, both tagged with spray paint. And this is the nice part, the center. Arid Arica comes with surf, Morro de Arica, Chinchorro mummies, and traffic more akin to Peru than Chile.
To the east, up the arid Azapa Valley, the outskirts has a shanty town where not a single blade of grass or tree can be found, one can see hundreds of people living in plywood, plastic, sheet metal, and cardboard patchwork shacks…evidence for the lack of building codes and social programs to handle the masses, it basically equals California´s tent cities, only more permanent, but it is a magnitude of order more extreme in this climate. A taxi ride going past the spread-out discotecas in the farmlands brings one to the museum housing a large collection of local Chinchorro mummies.
These diminutive dried out human remains are the oldest mummies in the world, dating back some 7,000 years. The mummies pre-date the Ancient Egyptian mummies by 2,000 years. The mummification process was extensive, unlike other Andean mummies which mainly were the result of the hyper-arid climate; the Chinchorros practice consisted of removing the organs and stuffing the body cavity with dried grasses. The faces were painted with tar, and ornamented by shells and feathers.
The Chinchorro culture was based on fishing, thus they occupied coastal areas from Ilo city in Peru to Antofagasta in Chile. Their main population was established in what we know now as Arica. Mummies have been found in the Valleys of Azapa, Camarones, and Lluta.
The museum houses 120 mummies, but only a subset of this is on display in the dark climate controlled showrooms. For those interested in ancient cultures of South America it is a must-do visit, worth putting up with the less than spectacular town of Arica, for more information visit Museo Universidad de Tarapaca San Miguel de Azapa. http://masma.uta.cl/
Arica is also popular among surfers. The long open beach immediately north of Arica has fair quality surfing that is known for being the warmest of the cold water to surf in all of Chile. Arica has several beaches or playas; Playa El Laucho, Playa La Lisera, Playa Corazones, Playa Brava, Playa Chinchorro, and Playa Arenillas Negras.
It is wrong on a foggy beach town morning to have to drink Nescafe. To get of the dreary fog I took a long drive south of Arica and went off the Panamericana highway down the canyon to the beach. Here the salt spray and crying gray seagulls added sharpness, feeling the interface between the land and ocean, the dynamic swash zone where particles dance and energy exchange. Just a quick stop before driving off into the desert, only to descend a deep canyon, driving to a hidden beach where shore breakers pound. The beach at Caleta Camarones reminds me of some of the truncated canyon fronts along the Northern California coast, shore-breakers consuming the river load of gravel and sand…steep shores, coarse grain size…and here even the water is cold like in NorCal. Way cool though, camping right on the beach, no fees, no park guardians, just wild man. Several hundred meters inland are local farmers growing crops of tomatoes…and an active underground mine following a dike. Other than this, the entire canyon and beach has no services. The beach is probably much as it was before the Spaniards sailed by saying “Hay Caramba!” The shore is completely virgin of human footprints this morning.
Later I did some exploring inland, driving up the very long jaunt across the volcanic tableland to the east of Arica, on the Pacific flank of the Andes, going 100-km inland and then into a deep ravine cut through welded tuff. A narrow twisty road leads into hidden canyon to a desert spring and the small community of Timar. They have a small white church, about thirty buildings, and gardens of tomatoes and roses. It is an oasis in the Atacama Desert…interesting for about five minutes, and it’s time to turn around and drive back to Arica.
The southern side of Arica is dominated by the singular brown hill that is called El Morro de Arica. It has a 130-meter high escarpment overlooking the Pacific and the crashing waves that are attempting to chew away the landmass. A cement staircase runs up the north flank of the hill going from the city. The walk up goes through the odor of piss, broken glass, and graffiti, bringing one to a good vantage point. At the summit there is a small memorial museum celebrating the battle in which the Chilean army overtook Peruvian forces on June 7th 1880 during the War of the Pacific. Peruvians history recalls the brave sacrifice of Colonel Alfonso Ugarte Vernal who rode his horse off of the escarpment rather than surrender, while the Chileans paint a less than heroic version of history. Of course, the victory here at Arica resulted in the poorer quality of food in the restaurants.
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