Iquique
Arrived mid-afternoon in Iquique, a short drive south of Arica. Found an overpriced home-stay which turned out to be a mad house, I was so glad to get away from that family. They were simply in your face and would make the most disturbing sounds, all the time. Happily booked on to the bus to Santiago for the following day,
I set out to explore the seaside town. Visited a tremendous theatre in the main plaza, and came across a quaint little cafe in a side street called ´Cafe Antiguo´ it was beautiful. Old upholstered chairs, old typewriters, trinkets, bottles, and mellow painted walls with a pine exterior door. I sat and had coffee and talked with the owner, he was an artista. Sat there for a while listening to ´round the midnight´and such like parisien music being played. Although the coffee was instant pretended it was heavenly. Calle de Baquedano is a beautiful paved street containing colourful Spanish colonial buildings of all different colours and was pedestrianised. I also visited the ´Casino Español´on the main plaza which is a very elegant (by Chilean standards) Moorish building containing the most elaborate interior designs and mosaics.
The next day, I headed Back to the funny house, mid-afternoon to collect my things before catching the bus to Santiago. My hands were full but as I was going out the door they produced and thrusted flyers of the funny farm into my face. They went straight in the bin!
Got on the bus to find no one sitting next to me- what a dream for a 24 hour ride! We went along the sea front waves were breaking well, huge barrels, head-high! Bodyboarders were out in style.
The sun set like a fireball in the sky, I would just loved to have been in that water. On leaving Iquique you are reminded that your still very much in the desert. It is an extremely wild coastline. The rock is spikey and intimidating. It´s also all black rock which reminded me of parts of our South Devon coastline. And the White, white backwash looked so, so cold!!!!!!!!! The airport is even beside the sea. I saw a flight landing on the airway which also runs parallel to the Pan-American highway.
Here´s to a long long ride! And I only had that extra seat for little while I knew my luck would run out eventually.
