Chile

Visited: June 1997, April 2001

Duration of visit: 10 days

Capital city: Santiago de Chile

Population: 15 million (1997)

Estimated reading time: 9 minutes

• Chuquicamata copper mine – the largest open pit copper mine, where all dimensions are over normal limits.
• Finding a Slovenian restaurant in spectacular Atacama Desert.
• It is easy to travel around one of the most organized and civilized countries in South America, under condition that you respect the rules.
• Business meetings in Santiago de Chile are better remembered for pisco sour and great fish dish than for business success.

After almost eight months of travelling through Central and South America on my Big Tour across the Americas, I crossed the overland border from Tumbes in Peru to Arica in Chile. I planned to explore only the northern part of Chile this time and later continue to Bolivia, since I was running out of time and money. My memoirs of the country are based on exploration of the northern part of Chile, which is heavily marked by desert and mining.

With 4,270 kilometers, Chile is the second longest country in the world, being a role model for economic development and democratization in Latin America.

This vast South American country is famous for the Atacama Desert, breathtaking scenery, a captivating culture, and several of the world’s most active volcanoes.

Due to the geological situation of the land in certain areas, it is not a surprise that Chile experience earthquakes. The country was victim of the biggest earthquake ever recorded. It occurred in Valdivia in 1960, registering at a magnitude of 9.5 and killing around 1,500 people and leaving more than 2 million homeless.

Chile was one of the very few countries in Latin America that didn’t require visa for Slovenian citizens in 1997 and they didn’t charge any hidden fees at the border either. Immediately after arriving to Arica, I realized that there was a notable difference between Chile and other South American countries, which I had previously travelled through. Vendors at street markets demonstrate a commendable degree of organization in their activities, while people in other countries would constantly scream, promoting their products or aggressively seek customers.

There were two main reasons on my bucket list to visit Chile: Chuquicamata and Atacama Desert.

They are both top listed as global extreme attractions: the first one being the largest open pit copper mine by excavated volume in the world and the second the driest nonpolar desert in the world.

The atmosphere in Arica was actually quite boring and reminded me a lot to Europe, without negotiations, upsets or regrets. A Marco Polo bus that transported me through the deserted countryside on a perfectly shaped and asphalted road to Iquique was an unknown luxury for months: a Hollywood movie and even a meal were offered aboard. I was in heaven.

Humberstone is one of three ghost towns in Atacama Desert, built around saltpeter with facilities that extracted rich nitrate deposits from the deserts of northern Chile. This material was used in explosives and fertilizers and was in great demand throughout the late 1800s and early 1900s.

Until a synthetic nitrate from Europe erased the need for saltpeter facilities and their workforces, the town was prosperous with better infrastructure that any bigger city in South America would be proud off.

Humberstone was abandoned so quickly that most of the buildings, houses and facilities stayed in perfect shape. It is a great example of how unpredictable development based on natural resources is, being able to bring unimaginable prosperity one day and the next day lead to a complete system breakdown.

I hitchhiked to El Gigante the Atacama – the biggest (86 meters high and 119 meters long) archaeological representation of a human in the world.

It is a kind of Nazca system complex of lines representing a powerful shaman dated back to 9^th century. The giant is looking towards the Pacific Ocean, with both arms open upwards and with other elements that accompany it, highlighting the design of a toothed-shaped headdress.

El Gigante is surrounded by thousands of other geoglyphs that have been discovered in Atacama during the last three decades.

The Atacama Desert may be the oldest desert on earth, and has experienced extreme hyperaridity for at least 3 million years, making it the oldest continuously arid region on earth. Evidence suggests that the Atacama Desert may not have had any significant rainfall from 1570 to 1971.

It is noteworthy that the Atacama Desert, due to its extraterrestrial landscape, has served as a filming location for scenes depicting Mars. NASA tests instruments for future Mars missions here.

The desert has rich deposits of copper and other minerals and the world’s largest natural supply of sodium, which was mined on a large scale until the early 1940s.

The drive to San Pedro de Atacama through the desert was quite surreal.

We passed a barren moon-like landscape full of just sand and rocks that seemed to go on forever. Near San Pedro de Atacama, the huge peaks and volcanoes of the Andes came into view. The town is like a green oasis in the middle of dry rocks and sand, surrounded by the Andes, the Salt mountains and a huge salt lake.

San Pedro de Atacama is a small, dusty settlement with charming mud-brick houses, a church and some ancient-looking trees. I settled down in a small guesthouse where I shared a room with other backpackers. We quickly exchanged information and coordinated details about a trip to observe the local attractions.

It was dark and cold walking around the town at night in search of appropriate dinner, when I noticed a strange name for a restaurant – Sonchek – offering various vegetarian options on the menu. I immediately connected photos from Slovenian mountains on the sunny side of the Alps with the name of the restaurant.

Of course, a fellow countrywoman opened a restaurant in Atacama. What a pleasant surprise to talk in my own language after months again. I happily paid for a delicious dinner, and after long conversation, got an invitation to move to a future Slovenian guesthouse in the desert town. I would be the first guest in Sonchek guesthouse, still under construction.

The next day, I took a tour to visit the desert and surrounding highlights. In a mini bus we climbed to El Tatio Geysers; with 80 steaming geysers at an altitude of 4,200 meters above sea level, it is the third-largest geyser field in the world.

After observing the geysers, bathing in the hot water and watching the natural scenery, we continued through a breathtaking lunar landscape of salt lakes, sand and lava.

Valley of the Moon was the last stop to observe the sunset. It was getting cold and people were freezing, so we were not patient enough to observe the moon raising from the desert. We drove back to our warm guesthouse after a perfect day of exploring the driest desert in the world.

The combination of clear skies, virtually zero rainfall, and no light pollution provide a perfect location for some of the world’s most advanced astronomical observatories.

Copper has been mined in the area between central Chile and southern Peru since Colonial times. Yet it was not until the 20^th century that copper reached the importance of other mining exports such as saltpeter or silver. These mines were mainly self-contained and self-sustaining settlements.

They were built as independent towns to house the workers, their own water, proper electrical plants, schools, stores, railways, and even their own police forces in certain cases.

I could observe all this infrastructure in a copper mining town Chuquicamata, while driving around in a company bus. I learned about the copper production process from the stage of explosion, which separates the solid rocks from the mountain, up to the final stage, showing how the metal is extracted through the technical processes used for its purification.

The final products are copper plates that weight 160 kilograms and contain over 99% of copper. Copper is the most important export product of Chile and in certain period represented up to 75% of total export.

With 4.5 kilometers of length, 3.5 kilometers of width and a depth of over 800 meters, the Chuquicamata copper mine is really impressive.

Twenty-four hours a day, 365 days per year, a fleet of approximately 120 trucks transports tons of the mineral extracted.

Probably these huge trucks impressed me even more than the mine. Out of 130 of them, approximately 10 are used only to water the road that leads to the excavating area at the bottom. They can carry up to 200 tons of material and are worth almost 2 million US$ each. One wheel itself is larger than a human being.

The three-day journey from San Pedro de Atacama to Salar de Uyuni in Bolivia was one of the highlights of my trip in South America.

Fantastic nature with exotic animals and extremely friendly people that live in this harsh environment is a unique experience: Laguna verde, Laguna colorada with flamingo colony, geysers and hot springs took me across the border to Bolivia, where I would continue my South American expedition.

While based in Ecuador, between 2000 and 2004, and managing a power tools plant, I also visited Santiago de Chile for business purposes. Although the initiative to reestablish a presence in the Chilean power tools market did not materialize, a beneficial aspect was the chance to meet local businessmen, visit the biggest hardware stores in the country and enjoy delicious meals, where Chileans were trying to sell me the idea that pisco sour was actually of Chilean origin, not Peruvian!

I must thoroughly explore Santiago de Chile and the southern regions of Chile, potentially in conjunction with Patagonia on the Argentine side. Even though Chile is not one of my top destinations, it was extremely rewarding to return to an organized and well-planned system, where logic and efficiency are the result of high education and mutual respect of the society.

For many Chileans, the experience of oppression under dictatorship is a well-documented aspect of their history, as well as the end result – Chile being a democratic country with solid economy, high educated population (for Latin-American standards) and high-quality living standards. Certain groups of people are always suffering, the question is what the benefit is on the long term.

I believe Chile is a success story and it will continue to develop in a positive direction.