Antofagasta - Nope, There's no Pasta

I’ve never been to Antofagasta. Have you? It’s a small but important port city in Chile.  It’s also a place where an educational ship visits for several weeks every few years.  It's called Logos Hope it's operated by a German Christian charitable organization and features a mobile bookstore, as a part of international Christian outreach movement.  In one of my pictures below, you can see a bunch of people lined up to get on the ship to get books and other educational materials.  You can also volunteer to work and live on this ship if you'd like.  You need to commit to a 2 year stint, however.  The ship travels all over the world.

Antofagasta, like I said, is a small city on the northern coast of Chile.  It's in the Atacama Desert region and is known for copper mining.  Copper is Chile’s main export - they are the largest producer in the world!  They've got mining reserves of 200 years.  

There are close to 400,000 people living in Antofagasta.  There might be as many dogs............They were everywhere in town, most sweet and sleepy.  The pedestrian street just off the main plaza even has dog houses set up for them!  And food and water bowls.  And I think there is a lady whose job is to pick up the poop.  There was not one pile or even hint of a trace of poop anywhere in town.  Pretty amazing for all the canines hanging around.

Patty and I took the shuttle bus in from the port, as you cannot walk around the port itself.  Most of the ports these days forbid this, so a shuttle bus is a necessity.  The shuttle ride was all of 10 minutes to the central plaza.  There's not a lot in the immediate area, but we did see that there was a railroad station museum of sorts (didn't go in), a bunch of banks (yay, I needed an ATM to get some Chilean pesos), a fountain and clock in the plaza, the requisite catholic church, and some pharmacies.  Oh, and (of course), a McDonald's. And free wifi around the plaza, a nice touch.

There were some nice sculptures along the pedestrian walk, too.  One of them also had a description of the statue in Braille along the side of one arm.  A nice touch!  (literally, right???!!!)

See?  Here's the very cool Braille description. Could we consider him tattooed?

And here's the statue with the tattoo.

The plain but still beautiful cathedral.  I loved the tile flooring.

The pigeons were having a field day in the fountain.  The weather was perfect.

Here are the dog houses set out for the city's canines.  Soooo cute!!

The plaza.

Pedestrian walk

Some architecture

Sleeping dogs.  On one corner we counted 9 dogs a sleepin'.

This was the best statue/sculpture work in my opinion.  It's fairly new, too, 2010.

More sleepin' dogs.

And me.  With a lion.  Hear us roar!!!

Here's the ship - Logos Hope

And you can see the line of people waiting to get on.


Travel quote:  "We travel not to escape life, but for life not to escape us."  Anonymous

Stay tuned for more Pig Tales!!