The Long Way Down, Up and Around: April 7/8/9 - Canyons and Ghost Towns

Moved up and out of Iquique pretty quick.

It´s a quirky city in the desert. It used to be a hub for nitrate mining. Before artificial fertilizer, the natural kind used to be worth a lot of money.

But then someone figured out how to make better fertilizer in a chemical plant, and Iquique faded away.

Now it´s been rejuvenated as a resort town, duty free area, fishing town, military base and mining camp.

Those things sit together uneasily at best - and the town has the feel of a 19th century port. It´s a little messy, there´s a lot going on. Sometimes the smell of fish hangs over the city when the wind blows the wrong way.

The highways here are strewn with ghost towns during the nitrate era. It´s a monument to how times change and new discoveries can destroy fortunes and make entire cities obsolete. Will folks look back at Dubai and wonder what the world was like when an oil field was worth billions of dollars?

Along that road, I stopped for a sandwich and found myself watching the Discovery Channel in the desert with a quirky shopkeeper, listening to him describe how he liked George W because he was a ¨man´s man¨.

The sandwich was actually really good. I´m sure as a solo motorcycle traveler that guy thought I was pretty quirky too.

I spent a few days further north at the port of Arica with some friends from the Uyuni trip. It´s a relaxed port town, but it´s a working city, not a tourist town. It was good to catch some sun and have a few drinks before heading up into Peru.

Arica - the major port serving Western Bolivia and some regional mines. A good place for work... but a little rough around the edges to chill out.

Will Dubai look like this one day? This place used to print money, and now it´s a museum.

Tumbling power lines at one of the old factories.

I actually took this picture in Detroit.

Striking... a hat shop in the middle of the desert.

These little shrines are scattered everywhere. Some have lots of trinkets and things... I don´t think they signify anything more than just a place to stop, take a picture, and say a prayer.