Iquique and thinking about altitude sickess in the high parts of Chile

6 nights in Iquique.. I didn't mean to stay so long, I just wasn't organised to get moving, and so I extended another couple of nights in this incredibly easy location.
   Plus, I my ears were hurting from bussing up the coast (and over a few big hills) so I needed to give them time to settle, to get over my slightly runny nose which I had picked up in Ovalle. Which got me thinking about how I was going to go steady into Bolivia and not get altitude sickness by having too fast an ascent.
   I actually arrived in Iquique by the flip of a coin. In the bus station at Caldera I had been unable to decide between Iquique and San Pedro de Atacama as destinations after Antofagasta, and so I flipped a coin. As it turns out, I have now decided to go to San Pedro from here, to acclimatise before Bolivia.
   This is really a surf and sun hangout so far as most backpackers are concerned, but I managed to do very little of that and find a few other things to keep me entertained. I've done 2 trips into the hills, one to an oasis in the desert called Pica, and another to an abandoned Nitrate boom town. And I also went Paragliding... Yikes! I would have left today, but my waiting until the last minute to book a bus ticket didn't work out for me. Good thing they still had my bed available at the hostel.
   A few things in Iquique have really made an impression on me. First, if you go inland (like to Pica and Humberstone) you rise up above the city quite quickly and have a birds eye view of the city extending to the coast, but more impressive is the whopping great big sand-dune sitting like a massive wedge right behind the city. Secondly, there are route of evacuation signs, incase of a Tsunami, everywhere. And thirdly, Cormorants (the birds) make really ugly noises. Singularly I guess they sound like a goose with a lifetime of too much booze and partying, collectively I wake in the morning and it sounds like I am near a pigsty by the sea.

The central street of Iquique, which leads from the plaza, is like something out of a movie set. You only need to put the people strolling on it's boarded sidewalks into period costume and you could start shooting a film set in, well, I'm not sure, perhaps the 1930's.

I wasn't as interested in the sunset as the big flock of birds.

Iquique beach at dusk.

Council festivities included a free Folkloric dance show. This piece was Peruvian. The costumes were cute.

It's a hard life being a sea lion. First you eat your fill of fish from the fishermans scraps, then you lie on the beach in the shallow waters, and you might get to use your mates tail as a pillow.

Fresh fish, fresh off the boat. I don't know what type they are, I could have asked, but the Chilean word wouldn't have been meant anything to me.

Notes:

Accommodation: Backpackers Iquique $11 * * * *

Bus Antofogasta to Iquique $20