Iquique,
Chile
Tuesday, August 12, 2008
Being on holidays we lost track of days and dates and thinking that we had only one more day before we flew to Lima we took off early in the morning to Iquique. This was another drive through yet more desert and as you approach the town this is where it gets interesting. Iquique is founded at the base of huge mountain range and a huge sand dune and if you look down as you descend it's just a sheer drop off! As the town is bound by the ocean and the high mountains it has a layer of fog over it and by the time we got there it was starting to get dark, combine that with fog and the town didn't look like much. Even though it came recommended as a really nice place we were beginning to have doubts as to why we came.
Once again it was a matter of looking for a hotel in the dark. We eventually found a hotel called Hotel Barros Arana. Once we were settled in and knew that we had a bed for the night we felt 100% happier. Iquique is prosperous because of the big Zona Franca, which a huge duty free zone which sells everything from cars to calculators. Naturally Malcolm and I had to go check it out.
