the Santa Laura saltpeter facility is located on the other side of the road
the buildings slowly decay, but recently restoration efforts have started
the original name was La Palma, in 1934 changed to Humberstone in honor of the famous english engineer
there was even a swimming pool, english style
the billboard at the entrance of the Humberstone nitrate town
the Atacama Giant also shows up on Google maps
not much is left of this storage facility
our guide Louis explains how things were done in the haydays
on our way to the rusty remains of the Santa Laura saltpeter refinery
transport lorries stand idle
Atacama Giant and Humberstone nitrate ghost town
The Atacama Desert in the north of Chile is rich in mysteries and minerals.
One of the mysteries is the meaning of the 5000 geoglyphs that
dot the desert.
The largest one is located just east of Huara, measures 120 meters and depicts a human figure or deity. This Atacama
Giant dates from around 1000 AD and might be an astronomical calendar or a signpost on one of the ancient Tiwanaku trade
routes. Or maybe something else?
After 1850 the worldwide demand for fertilizers and explosives soared. Both applications need nitrate, a mineral of which the northern Atacama happens to have the world's largest deposits.
Soon mining for the 'white
gold' boomed and complete nitrate towns emerged.
It triggered the War of the Pacific, in which Chile conquered all of the Bolivian
held Atacama territory.
Mining continued till the 1960s after which most of the nitrate towns and mines were abandoned and left
to rust away.
Since 2005 the Humberstone and Santa Laura Saltpeter Works is a Unesco World Heritage site and open to the public.
We
visited the Giant and Humberstone in September 2011.
15 km east of Huara we stop at the Cerro Unitas hill
the Atacama Giant, locally known as Gigante de Tarapaca. The hill features many more smaller geoglyphs
the saltpeter was shipped to many countries, including Germany, (except during the first world war)
this was the primary school, catering to the 3500 inhabitants
these snow-capped mountains of the Andes range are more then 100 km away
one of the now obsolete locomotives, originally imported from England
