Antofagasta [Day Two]

Our day #2 in Antofagasta brought us a walk thru the city and the local fisherman bay. We also visited the Huanchaca ruins. We had a nice, relaxing day.

This is a photo from the bay looking at the city. Look how little land there is from the hills to the ocean! The city expands north to south and runs completely along the coast. I didn’t like how dry it is. Absolutely no green. Except an avenue in downtown that has lots of trees and grass. I didn’t like Antofagasta to be honest. Denisse, my girlfriend that moved there commented on how people didn’t have pride in their city and were dirty. We saw litter quite often while walking the streets. We also thought the streets were stinky. Because it never rains there. Seriously, never! Rain doesn’t wash out the streets and the city does a terrible job taking care of that. She was telling me that one day it started to mist and people where freaking out. Getting ready for a catastrophe or something like that. Well, because it doesn’t rain the house’s roof aren’t build for heavy rain.

There were some ladies cleaning some fish and throwing the fish heads and tails to the pelicans who were fighting for it.

My mom looking at the commotion.

There where these two pelicans really fighting over a piece of fish. Look how one wouldn't give up and was trying to take it from INSIDE the other pelican’s mouth!

We kept walking and found these awesome murals. We thought they were so real. This was the old train station. The murals were a scene from the station in the old days. Pretty cool!

Dad waiting for the train!

It’s always nice to pet a horse!

Mom being social with the water seller!

After we decided that we did enough walking, we took a taxi and headed to the Huanchaca Ruins. They were so pretty, as you can see in the pictures.

Hmm, Dad. Move your head, I’m trying to show the ruins here!!

There you have them!!

This was a silver refining plant. It was built in 1888. In 1893 it was processing 200 tons of silver and had 1.000 workers. It closed its doors in 1902 and was left behind. A few years ago the city thought it would be a good idea to potentiate the ruins as a touristic attraction ( you think?) Before that it was a place for bums and druggies. I’m telling you, people there don’t care much about their city. They cleaned it out, built a museum, charged some money and here we are!

We couldn’t leave without checking the museum out.

They had such a pretty rock garden at the entrance. Colorful and pretty.

Love the round rocks, they brought them from the dessert. All of the rocks in the garden are from the area. They said that millions of years ago the dessert was ocean. They had found sea snails and other jurassic things.

Gigantic Mussel.

Utensil used in the processing of Silver. Those were the silver bricks.

NASA did some testing with the NOMAD. The terrain in the area is very similar to the one on Mars.

The ruins were so pretty at night! They light them and look just awesome.

I give the ruins,the museum and the murals two thumps up! The rest of the city not so much.