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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