Iquique

I was drawn to Iquique, at the last minute, by three things: first, its name. That may seem silly, and it is; but I really wanted to see what this Iquique place looked like. Second, the ghost town of Humberstone is near here, and I read you could arrange tours from Iquique. And third, Iquique is renowned for its paragliding.

But-- Iquique is not exactly a tourist town. Tours to Humberstone only leave on Thursday apparently, unless you have a group of 4 or more people; not much help when you´re traveling alone. And one look at the steep, steep cliffs that dwarf the town told me that I´d not likely be paragliding like I planned. I made a half effort while here to find a company with tandem flights, but one place was closed the two times I walked by, and another was not where its website said it would be (not the first time I´ve experienced that in South America).

So Iquique was kind of a bust. I was interviewed for a show on national tv about tourism in Chile, but I can´t imagine they would actually use my garbled, nervous-to-be-on-tv spanish for anything other than laughs. I spent most of my time wandering the beach, playing like a local: shopping at the Mall of America (I got a Lamb of God t-shirt), attending a free 1st chair trumpet concert, eating banana doughnuts. It´s not a bad place here, but it´s hot and easy to get sunburned. It´s like a wild west town on one side, poor, but with wooden sidewalks and unassuming desert architecture; while the other side could be a rich California town, with its square modernism and electric fence security systems. A funny town with a funny name.