Sheekh Kababs in Arica

Had a day to kill in Arica today…

The original plan was to head out to the altiplano today for a 2-day trip. But couldn’t get the trip, so booked it for tomorrow (80% chance is what Charlie, the Belgian owner of the tour agency told me y’day). Charlie is like an expat character out of a Maugham novel - bald and moderately fat with a slightly cheesy toothy smile. He’s been in Arica for over 15 years now and runs the tour agency with his Chilena wife. Seems to get a lot of European custom...The smile suggests oiliness but he’s quite nice. He was relying on a French ‘party’ coming into Arica today – so we’d have a quorum for the trip; he got a few heart attacks (along with me) before they finally came into his office at 7pm. Agnes and Alain are school teachers from Tahiti – she teaches French and he History & Geography. They’d been to Australia a few times and loved it (like everyone seems to!). Seemed a nice couple…

Yesterday morning, it was 4 hours to Arica from Iquique - through some more shockingly arid landscapes. Rock, gravel and sand. Mountains of it...We actually went through a pass about a km high and the landscape looked lunar. Grey, dull-brown and black; the Atacama is at its harshest here. After 2.5 hours of this, out of nowhere came this tiny settlement, Camina Camione, a dry dusty hamlet that seemed to serve no purpose (though it did have the right idea – roadside, there was a faded lifesize cut-out of a girl in a bikini spruiking the local cerveza! Felt like hopping out and grabbing a cold beer). Reached Arica at 3pm and realise a blazing afternoon is never a good time to enter a town; it’s probably at its least attractive.

Anyway, on closer inspection, Arica turned out to be a patchwork of streets; with a cheerful melting pot feel to it. It’s a border town after all – so its streets are flooded with roadside markets peddling cheap clothes, plastic toys, el cheapo electronics et al. Also seems to have an inordinate number of roadside sheekh kabab sellers (chicken on a skewer). In some ways, Arica seems to show more character than other Chileno cities; which can be quite dreary in their orderliness (and their O’Higgins plazas). Wandered around today - thanks to the postponed altiplano trip. Other than streets piled high with cheap goodies, also saw the train station (there’s a train from Arica to La Paz and an Ikea-like iron church that Eiffel built. He built it in his workshop and then shipped the parts to Arica where it was assembled and riveted together.

The highlight of the day was watching a football match in the evening (on TV). The entire town was watching it – and the local team won. Then the celebrations began - with mobs of kids lighting fireworks and carrying the team flag down the main street. BTW, Arica also seems to have large numbers of college kids with paint/mud smeared all over their bodies with strategic spots suitably covered with black plastic bags (the kind you get it daru shops in India); asking passersby for money. What the….