Antofagasta, Chile

Nov. 7, 2024

This was my first visit to Antofagasta. This small city of around 400,000 people, is a coastal city with some beaches and a lot of rocky coast. And the waves can get quite high. Apparently the beaches just south of town host some of the championship surfing competitions. Another note about the beaches here - they are all artificial, man-made. There are no natural beaches in Antofagasta.

The climate is pleasant, not hot by any means, but warm enough most afternoons for a t-shirt or light shirt and pretty much always long pants. At least during the summer months of November through January. The city is quite modern yet has many late-19th/early twentieth century buildings and houses. The amount of rain received here is miniscule - about 4.4 millimeters over the course of the year. Temperatures range from mid-high 50s in the winter months of June-July, and low 70s in the summer and spring months of December-March. It's said that Antofagasta is the world's driest city.

Antofagasta is a port city in northern Chile, and is the capital of Antofagasta Province and Antofagasta Region. It is known for its significant mining activities, particularly copper, silver, and saltpeter. The city has the highest GDP per capita in Chile, at US$37,000, and the 3rd highest Human Development Index in Chile.

The city's history is linked to mining and territorial disputes. It was claimed by Bolivia after the Spanish American wars of independence but was captured by Chile in 1879, leading to the War of the Pacific between Chile, Perú, and Bolivia. Chilean sovereignty was recognized by Bolivia in 1904 under the Treaty of Peace and Friendship.

A brief summary of the War of the Pacific.

Perú did not recognize Chilean sovereignty over Antofagasta in 1904. Peru and Bolivia had a secret defensive alliance treaty in 1873, which forbade Bolivia from signing a border treaty with Chile without consulting with Peré. When Bolivia signed a border treaty with Chile in 1874, it violated this agreement. The War of the Pacific broke out in 1879, and Perú became involved in the conflict.

Perú and Chile signed a peace treaty in 1883, the Treaty of Ancón, where Perú recognized the Chilean occupation of the provinces of Tarapacá and Antofagasta. However, the exact boundary between Chile and Perú was not clearly defined until the 1929 Treaty of Lima.

Antofagasta is a service hub for lithium mining and has a British-inspired clock tower in Plaza Colón. The city has faced natural disasters, including a mudslide in 1991 and an earthquake in 1995, but has recovered and continued to grow. In 2008, Marcela Hernando became the first female mayor of the city.

The city's geography features an average elevation of 40m, located on the coastal plains between Mejillones Peninsula and Cerro Coloso. Below Cerro Coloso is a tiny pueblo (town) called Coloso, it's a fishing village and has a processing plant for the copper mined outside the city, and a pier for ships. There is also a desalination plant there that provides water to the mining operations. The Antofagasta regions is responsible for 54% of Chile's copper production. Chile has the largest reserves of lithium worldwide and was the second largest producer in 2024, after Australia, and it is shipped from Antofagasta. There are also mining operations for nitrate and iodine in the region.

While on the bus heading south from Iquique, the bus stopped in the town of Tocopilla (I visited both of those cities on my last trip through northern Chile), and woman got on the bus and took the seat next to me. In talking to her I learned she is from Colombia but now lives in Antofagasta. While here in Antofagasta I found a restaurant that calls itself a Colombian restaurant so of course I had to try it. The food is indeed authentic, and it turns out that almost everyone working there, and the owners, are all from Colombia. I've gotten to know them all quite well these past few days. Also, I stopped in a small store to buy something for desert and a woman asked me "where are you from." That conversation went on to Colombia and my years there, and it turns out, two of the customers in the store were also from Colombia, one from a town very near where I used to live. One of the women referred to Antofagasta as Antocolombia. There are quite a few Colombianos living here in Antofagasta.

I spent five days here exploring the city and found it a pleasant enough city but the climate is definitely cold, too cold for me. I expected it would be this far south, and as I continue further south I'll be getting even colder, the only positive point is that right now is the beginning of the warm season. My last visit to Chile was not during the warm season so I didn't venture south of Iquique, instead heading across the very cold Atacama Desert and into Argentina. This trip I will be visiting several towns on the way to Santiago, then I be there for a few days, then head a bit further south to visit a few more towns, then return to Santiago for another three days before I head to Mendoza, Argentina. All of that I expect will be a month to a month-and-a-half. The next city on my plan: La Serena and its neighbor Coquimbo, both coastal cities.