iquique

Once we are back in Iquique, we decide to walk to the beach (although Ignacio warned us that the shore is also a dangerous area) and watch the sunset. There are pelicans, yay! I have been trying to get decent pelican pictures for a while. The sunset turns out to be lame so we walk around Iquique  instead. Which has some pretty cool architecture, like a purple church.

We spent 30 minutes hanging around a kiosk, trying to find a junky magazine for our bus ride the next day. However, it seems that all the magazines that cater to women are about knitting, cooking, babies, or decorating. Oh, and gardening and fashion. My favorite title is “Cocinas y Baños” (kitchens and bathrooms). Most women my age here are married with children, so there are no interesting reads for bored singles. There doesn’t seem to be anything like a Chilean version of “Cosmopolitan” or all those other women’s magazines. Just the South American edition of Cosmo. There are one or two celeb gossip mags, but that’s no fun because we don’t know Chilean celebrities. Of course, we could pick up one of the masculine magazines: cars, guns or women.

In the evening, we went out to a bar on our street.

They have a video screen playing horrible music videos, but with the sound off, there is a jukebox too. Everyone starts cheering and singing along loudly each time a new cheesy romantic song comes on the jukebox. All the patrons are men, and there are a million women working as waitresses. I suspect that there is some other aspect to this bar that we are not catching on to, although it seems innocent enough. I ask for a pisco sour, but all they serve is beer. One of the guys at the table next to us asks to buy us a drink, but we decline, since neither of us can finish off another one of these giant beers without getting drunker than intended. But a few minutes later he asks again, and we agree to share one more beer between us. Turns out he and his little person friend are Peruvians. They ask to take a picture with us on their camera phone…okaaaay.

And they warn us to be careful, that this is a “bad area” at night. (Chileans really love telling us this.)

Our hostel is across the street though, so we make it back without incident.

Iquique fotos: http://chile.marahtyler.com/#29.0