Along Dragon Hill the road turns 90 degrees toward the east, becoming the “Rutas del Desierrto,” shortly, the Alto Hospicio comes into view, a municipality and commune separate from and above Iquique on the desert plain, “the pampa.” The miners who lived and worked at Humberstone, the World Heritage Site we will visit, were called “pampino salitrero.”

Click any photograph for a larger view and use Ctrl-x to zoom in closer.

Alto Hospicio in 2012 was home to 94,254 souls, as a rapidly growing area there were more this February, 2016. The Colegio Macaya of the photograph, rising above ramshackle dwellings of improvised materials, is an elementary school, near as I can tell with my rudimentary knowledge of the Spanish language.

Proximity to Iquique and its port, its road connectivity to inland roads to large mining centers in Arica-Parinacota, Tarapacá and Atacama regions, was well as cheap land, make this district a strategic link for industry and mining service-rendering companies. Iquique Duty Free Zone has 316 acres in behind this sign where better and seventy (70) percent of revenues are derived.

Click me for the first post of this series.

References

Wikipedia – “Alto Hospicio“.

Web site: https://www.zofri.cl/en-us/Inversiones/ParqueEmpresarial-AltoHospicio/Pages/Home.aspx

Copyright 2020 Michael Stephen Wills All Rights Reserved