Day 22, February 5, Iquique, Chile, Sunny, 8oº
I guess because it was Sunday morning, this town was very sleepy. The one restaurant/bar that was open was just finishing cleaning up from the night before.
This city is having a revival. It’s evident that the center was once opulent, with an impressive clock tower, busy tram system, impressive Spanish Colonial and Georgian buildings lining a palm-tree lined boulevard. One of the biggest mansions there has been converted to a museum; other buildings are derelict. Yet the streets were very clean. The teakwood (!) sidewalks have been patched. On the next street over stands an attractive post-modern apartment building, and a crane has been set up to build more high-rise buildings, as well.
This suggests to me that while the saltpeter trade that had funded the building of Iquique has faded away, a new copper mine in the area has come to the city’s rescue.
