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Chile, photos, captions ... (10)

Oases Nordic (1 / 2) -region-Calama

(the valley of the Rio Loa, the longest river in Chile! -440 km-)
Who says the desert oasis said! The arid northern Chile is no exception to the rule. Among the few havens of greenery spread, particularly along the Rio Loa about fifty kilometers from Calama, villages and Lasana Chiu Chiu are true blessing for travelers overwhelmed by too much sun. Today was also not a luxury to expect a little freshness. In addition to the usual heat, the van that we had charged this morning out of Calama carrying drums of petrol. Most of them were not closed and at every turn, Marie-Helene and I were watered copiously fuel. So

impregnated fragrance oil and a little queasy that we Lasana landed. A tiny hamlet consisting of no more than twenty homes stuck in the hollow of a picturesque gorge where the river meanders Loa. A torrent
mastered allowing farmers to get good harvests vegetables. It's always amazing to see grow in the desert, beets, carrots, onions and garlic!
In addition to this vital activity for dozens of families, the proximity of a fortified village (one pukara) from the twelfth century, gives the place a tourist attraction not devoid of interest. Moreover, all tour operators now have regional integrated circuits for a visit of this singular site.
All this may foreshadow a good life and a bright future but is not counting on the proximity of the largest of Chile's Codelco. It has indeed, about thirty miles from here, the biggest copper mine to open the world known as Chuquicamata. For the treatment of ores, a large amount of water is indeed necessary and Codelco uses the intense pumping of water from nearby rivers, including those of the Loa. Formerly a high flow, the river (which, despite its modest appearance, is the longest river in Chile with 440 miles long!) can now be crossed on foot. At most risk is there to wet your legs, and again.

(mine of Chuquicamata, the biggest copper mine to open the world)

few days ago, when visiting the mine precisely, we also asked the guide the company what it was exactly these intensive pumping and we were very curtly replied (this is the case to say) that Codelco had reached the maximum possible sampling and that the peasants had nothing to fear ....

The family who agreed to host us today Lasana turn is well representative of the spirit of friendly and hospitable people of the far north of Chile.
This family owns a small house that serves as groceries, but also coffee. The house is of stone and covered with mud. If we are careful, you could even believe that the modest building is part of the citadel nearby as the materials used are similar.

But the house of Doña Loyenza is a place inhabited and warm. It's good to live. Only to realize it takes time to stop, talk and socialize. And that tourists who pass through here with organized excursions do not know.
-They stop about ten minutes, says the grocer, they take two or three pictures of the fortress, smoke a cigarette and then go away ....

The boss of the store does not hide it: she prefers people who are not in a hurry. For them, it will abandon a moment his "boutique" and take the time to guide itself travelers in what it calls "its" ruins. As it will for us this afternoon. In an amused tone, she said such strange cruciform window, this series of prints appears on one side of the building inaccessible or there, a piece of thatch, she says, comes from the roof of origin of the citadel! And no matter if the information does not always seem of great historical accuracy: the enthusiasm and kindness of Doña Loyenza outweigh. In fact, back home, as we were about to prepare our meals on the veranda, she remarked that it was not necessary and invited us to share dinner with her husband and her nephew. In the small kitchen lit by a paraffin lamp, the table was laid and covered already waiting unexpected guests. On the menu: a rustic soup of carrots and onions followed by a rabbit fed ... the desert grasses and finally a box of white wine to fan the embers of a happiness without substitute.
As it was already too late to pitch the tent in the garden. It is still the brave Doña Loyenza we propose to hold One of the rooms unoccupied house.
-As you will be ready at dawn to begin the hike you have planned! (based Trip November 91)

(Fortress-of-pukara Lasana (12th century) and the valley of the Rio Loa)

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Chile, photos, captions ... (9)

Iquique, war Pacific and ghost towns (3 / 3)

In Los Pintados

Past the small church, we came to a place. Some carob trees had taken root there without any organization. One of them even contrived to push through the carcass of what was burned was a limousine.
there, other shrubs were undermining the foundations of a bandstand. The most notable building, however, this theater was preceded by an elegant shopping arcades well drawn.
What parts we had played on his plates? Who were these unfortunate artists who once had to happen on this stage in the heart of the desert?


I tried to imagine the sound of pianos that could have silted up, or the timbre of the violins split the soul too dry, one of these trumpets consistently seized pistons.
Maybe we produced here burlesque shows, entertainers to Ahura jokes as outdated as those made a specialty of the ineffable Hector "Comebomba. An artist of music hall which was produced in 1900 in the mining towns of the North and whose only issue was to chew with the teeth of a light bulb then swallowed it without, say, the slightest grimace.

After all, rather eat glass the stone was not worse. At least, this guy saw the country and would feel more free than all those "broken" before which he performed in exchange for a mattress, a little food and alcohol.

Among the legendary figures who tirelessly traveled the desert at the beginning of the century, there were however some whose reputation far beyond the Salpetriere North to become true emblems of the working class struggle in Chile. Luis Emilio Recabarren was them. A holy man who had built a solid reputation for having agitator made up his mind to awaken the consciences of the workers dazed by the infernal production rates but also alcohol. In a speech given as usual in a tavern infamous, he said in particular that the release of the working class would rise by culture. At the end of his speech, he also persuaded his audience to break all the bottles of alcohol and asked everyone to cast his glass on the ground. Against all expectations, everyone agreed, and after the speech, a procession of workers was organized to head to the headquarters of the company that occupied them. The slogan was rather revolutionary Recabarren asked everyone to hold up a book during the procession, and for those who did not, a newspaper ...

The movement had such an impact that, to the coast and in ports, workers busy unloading ships crossed arms when it was a cargo of liquor!
If this period of self deprivation lasted only a short time (the then President Allesandra pretext of freedom of trade, sent the army to unload boats and persuaded the workers that beer and alcohol does were that refresh without consequence) Recabarren had still been very good at persuading the convicts from the desert to abstinence ethyl!

Outside, a light breeze had risen and formed here and there small clouds of dust that fell apart almost immediately. About to come off a sheet insecure had begun to beat a random measure. A dog fawn appeared, peeling knotty, covered with scabs and glassy eyes. He stopped a few meters from us and we looked without flinching. In the distance, a human figure approaching slowly. The man was advancing in the middle of the rails, as a hauler whose burdens have been abandoned this train that was visible in the background.
"Do not stay in the sun," cried the man in rags, you'll go crazy! "
It beckoned us to follow him and we encouraged the dog with lots of shots of truffle in the folding of the knees.

It took a few minutes to get used to the darkness of the room where the man had made us enter. There was little: a bed, a crate serving as a back table at night, a hurricane lamp and a wall covered with pictures of girls naked.
"Ah, the visits are rare these days," sighed the unexpected guest. It's been a while since I watched with my binoculars. When I saw you leave the theater, I am afraid for a moment that you are returning to the road. That's why I dropped Pinocho to attract your attention. The man spoke without looking at us too, too busy to prepare an omelet gargantuan. He took a moment to go and fill a jug of water he was then boiled on a small bill for camping.
"That's for tea! he says with an air rejoiced. With the omelet and bread 'house "It will make you a nice dinner table, right? "

The only inhabitant of Los Pintados" named Ramon Cabrera. It was a strange character. It would have been impossible to give an age. Although quite bare, it reminded me a little Leo Ferré. Especially his eyes and he had this habit of nervously eye squint. And then that look. That of a hunted animal or a predator to prey? Maybe just a man alone in a city forgotten by all.
During the meal, Ramon told us the reasons which had lead austere in this country.
He had once been an active campaigner in an underground trade union in the shipyard. A membership that had earned him in big trouble at the time of the dictatorship: in addition to numerous arrests "administrative" and bullying that he had been, his boss had dismissed arbitrarily. It 'is that there are two or three years he had been able to find a job in Railways. The job was not very well paid but did not require any special knowledge or effort intensive and, at his age, he said, it mattered. It was when his employer took him to his affection for Los Pintados he thought at first it was a joke. There was certainly a track that crossed the place but no station. There were a village ... but not people!
As for work, it came down to little things in fact: Once or twice a week, freight trains were traveling to Iquique by separating a part of their convoy because the slope accessing the port was too steep overloaded and trains were running the risk of derailing. While Ramon was just watch the cars that remained on hold until a locomotive just take them in turn.
- At first, I thought I could not take more than fifteen days in this atmosphere. Imagine, the only thing you see moving around you these are the big black birds that will not stop spinning in the sky. And the noise! Saltpeter, it keeps "working" you know, even at night it cracks! As it gets colder, the ore, it shrinks, and again "it sings," you can not imagine!
And then, after a time, s'habitude, there are occupations, I get stuff left to right, and little I just got my nest! I even on TV now, I picked up an old post, and I tinkered with my generator, I can receive full programming. Well, almost, because there is no image. I just sound. Then at night I listen to movies, but always with the same images before me, smiled Ramon: dunes, stars, and the ruins in the distance, the headlights of trucks crossing the Pan American ... But
-j 've of the imagination, I can transform the elements of my decor at the mercy of movies and sometimes it fits rather well. Consider, for example the other day he spent "Lawrence of Arabia" j'vous not tell the mood.
The hardest thing with the American series. Here, I can not quite imagine Miami or Beverly Hills amidst all these ruins.
-though one night, it has nevertheless taken on a so realistic that I was scared. I was listening to a spy movie when suddenly, right in the middle of the film, I hear a car approaching. This time, it was not in the position. It was for real. There was a huge tray, such as "Buick" with chrome everywhere who had stopped at a few tens of meters from my hut and then ... nothing for almost an hour. There were two guys in the car, but they did not move. I just saw the glow of their cigarette butts. I was terrified. I cut the TV on and off the lantern and had squatted here, just where there is this gap in the wall. Suddenly it happened something extraordinary. First a loud noise and then the impression that a storm was rising sharply by raising of enormous clouds of dust. A helicopter had to lead from behind the dunes and posed a few meters from the car. Then it just went in a few seconds: the two types of the Buick came out of the car, opened the trunk and extracted two cases obviously very heavy for the lift to board the aircraft. Then, just before climbing turn in the helicopter, they doused the car with petrol and have done flaming. It has scorched much of the night!
"Besides, you missed the carcass while ago, nothing has changed and since nobody ever came to ask me anything about this story that I'm the only witness, then, what do you, I do not say anything to anybody ....

We finished our meal
Outside, the sun and the heat became unbearable. The dog was cowering at my feet and smell the tea invaded the home of strange vigil "Los Pintados".
Through the cracks of the roof could still guess the relentless round of large black birds in the sky. It was time to move on. (after "travel diary of November 91")

(Ramon Cabrera, Los Pintados vigil and sole inhabitant of the village)

In addition to this ticket, a rare document filmed in 1924 during funeral of Luis Emilio Recabarren (mentioned in this post), father Movement Chilean worker, founder of the Chilean Communist Party. Note, this film illustrating the song performed and composed by Victor Jara

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Chile, photos, captions ... (8) Chile

Iquique, the Pacific War and the city-ghosts (2)


Exit Iquique in "stop" is not really a problem. There are lots of trucks passing through this town each day to refuel or to ensure delivery before hitting the road across the pampas.
Indeed, after ten minutes waiting to Copec (Chilean Oil Company), a heavyweight we already proposed to mount on the rear platform of the horse could draw. "Climb up, and hold on tight to the ropes, threw the driver by roar the engine. "
The space was not much wider than our shoes, but once in place and clinging to the straps that held the package on the platform, we thought that even standing, it would be possible to make a long journey well. Did not count on the shock speed and most importantly, how to say the least nervous driver's license. In addition, the strings that we wanted were no longer fresh. The idea of breaking these links already well worn and falling under the axles of the trailer (because there was also a trailer) still gives me cold sweats.
After an hour of this ordeal on the Panamericana, I utilized a slight slowing of the truck to flag down the driver and tell him that we wanted to get off. "Already! exclaimed the driver, but you're nowhere here! "As we insisted, the truck finally stopped. There was actually nothing here that one post that says "129 km" and a ridiculous cover sheet to protect from the sun hypothetical travelers. Ironically at this shelter had been painted a giant ice cream cone. All around, there was that nothingness, or rather, the pampas. Not the grassy plain that dictionaries define such a vast grassy area where cows graze and sheep, but a vast corridor of loneliness mineral crushed sunshine, wedged between the coast and the Cordillera of the Andes.

There were lots of stories circulating on these lands once coveted for their wealth. Stories a little crazy, like those of airmen who lost one night after a forced landing, had once been eaten by rats .. Stories sometimes a bit scary suggesting the presence of creatures half-men, Mid pigs, children vampires and headless horsemen wandering through the endless gray dunes.
Whatever element of truth to these stories of old miners, these "old broken" as they are called here, there was indeed a climate in the Pampas strange, heavy, presqu'angoissant, despite the bright sunshine .

It was not yet noon. We sat a moment on the floor, trying to give us a little about past emotions "on board" of the truck.

was the hour when the earth began to complain. At first it was to listen to realize it, but gradually became clearer the vague impression and the sound became even haunting. From crackling dry
jolts millimeter, soil, white-hot, began to move. He writhed and spread out in ripples of foam hemmed mineral: saltpeter arose.

Was it the heat or fatigue of this perilous journey, but I now head a little empty and I sat without moving to fix a lizard impassive. He seemed to evaluate the risks he would incur by slipping into a crack apparently well received. Y was easy to enter, leave in an hour it might be impossible ...

The passage of a Pullman me out of my torpor. For a while now, we heard the sound of tires on asphalt softened approach. It reminded me this impression that one has when walking with a chewing gum stuck to the sole. Schlik, shlick, schlik .... When the bus passed
our height, I saw that none of the passengers watched the landscape.

I was almost regretting the comfort of these bus lines. With their air conditioning and soundproofing, one would felt protected and most importantly, completely cut off from the sometimes hostile environment.
I remember a few years ago, I took one of these buses to cross the desert side of San Pedro de Atacama. The assistant driver to pass the time passengers had chosen to take an old movie with Charlton Heston. It was the Cid, I think, or one of those dusty historical films shot in arid and desert landscapes as those through which the bus!

As it was too hot now to wait for a vehicle and continue our journey, we decided to approach this village we had seen in the distance and we will host until the sun goes down a little.
was one of those "pharmacies" abandoned as there are dozens along the Panamerican Highway in the north. Real villages sometimes towns that once lived in the exploitation of saltpetre until the day when German chemists at Bayer managed to produce this product (used as fertilizer) in summary. Therefore, these towns and villages collapse gradually as to be totally abandoned. Towards

1908, just after the Pacific War, these operations were almost exclusively in the hands of business English, including the famous John North who had acquired much of the holdings at low prices during a conflict.

Working conditions in these pharmacies were worthy of those convicts and workers spent whole days to break the stone under a blazing sun. Once the stones cut, it was then hoist it into huge vats filled with water that was worn to a boil to remove unwanted substances from nitrates. The resulting slurry was then poured in bins. Water evaporates quickly leaving finally reveal the salt of the earth, potassium nitrate ... Chile saltpetre.

The workers of these farms were underpaid and their salaries were made in addition to "good" that they could share in grocery stores and the company (pulperias). Businesses whose prices were obviously much higher than those commonly in town.

The abandoned village where we were called "Los Pintados"-referring to petroglyphs covering Area-dunes and cross the first building was a small church. The frontispiece of this, there was a naive drawing illustrating the epistle of Matthew: "It is broad and spacious way that leads to destruction. It is narrow and winding, one that leads to eternal life ... "

(murals in Los Pintados)

(See also the wonderful story that just spent Clouds the ghost towns of the North Chilean here)

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Iquique, the Pacific War and ghost towns ... (1)

Street names, monuments and statues of places are sometimes quite useful clues for understanding and immerse themselves in the history of a city or region. When you walk in Iquique for example, it is striking that a series of recurring names. They are all keys to opening the door of a city which apparently could only be bathing. There is room Condell, Baquedano streets, Esmeralda and Covadonga, and of course the famous Arturo Pratt alone names the pier, a place, the university and honor, has its size replica face and calm green waters of the most beautiful beach of the city: Cavancha beach. "Who knows Cavancha knows Iquique, also proclaims the tourist brochures."

Speaking Arturo Pratt, precisely, one can not evoke the personality of the military without addressing the historical context for the least shaken in which he became famous.
Before 1879, the configuration of Chile had not yet that we know it today. Its northern neighbor, at the time, was Bolivia, which occupied the current Chilean province of Antofagasta. A strategic province in this country altiplanic because it allowed him to have its sole access to the sea further north again, to the tune of Iquique began Peruvian territory. Boundaries making long been controversial because, although totally desert, the region contains not only large deposits of guano, but also and especially silver nitrate and saltpetre. The latter was used for the manufacture of fertilizers (For the European export) and gunpowder. An important part of the Chilean economy was then in the profits generated by the export of nitrates.
At the time, Chile had even encroached heavily on Bolivian territory to set up places of business of saltpeter on payment of significant financial compensation to its northern neighbor.
is when in 1879 the government of La Paz decides to increase these fees from establishments that Chile is the perfect excuse to forcibly send her army and give itself the same time-and-final this strategic area. Peru, Chile's historical ally since the independence struggles in mediator tried to intervene but to no avail. A secret pact linking Bolivia to Peru was discovered and became Peru, following an enemy to hunt off the land to nitrates.
To conquer territories in Bolivia and Peru, the strategy chosen by the Chilean military is to choose the sea and to land its troops each time a little further north in the region to invest and thereby isolate it from its sources supplies. This technique requires the supremacy at sea, and begat a series of improbable naval combat and the conflict was of course "called" War of the Pacific. Among those fighting the so-called "Iquique" was memorable. It was held May 21, 1879 when two Peruvian ships trying to force the Chilean blockade lasted for over a month and a half already. A first boat Chile (Esmeralda, an old wooden sloop!) Will also sank after, say, a heroic battle and much of its crew will perish along with his captain Arturo Pratt. Feeling grow wings by this first victory, the Peruvian military tries to reserve the same fate in the second Chilean vessel providing a blockade. It (The Covadonga) ordered by Admiral Carlos Condell succeed, however, lead to his rival Peru (Independencia, a boat more modern steel and heavier ...) to the shallows and will run aground. The wind had turned again and regained the top Chilean ... .. Their victory definitely return in 1881.A After the war, Bolivia will have lost permanently its nitrate deposits and especially its access to the sea As in Peru, he has even seen the Chilean troops in a demonstration of the Moorish advance mata up its capital, Lima! It was also during this war and chaos in the context surrounding a British businessman, John North, will acquire part of the vast deposits of saltpeter in the region. It is said also to him that he was the real winner of the Pacific War without firing a single shot! (based travel diary of November 91)

(representation "art" of battle Iquique, with the left, the corvette Esmeralda sinking)