Iqueque, Chile (2nd time)

This is our second visit to Iquegue. The first one was in 2018 when we went paragliding. Still remember this experience!

Today we took a 9:00am required shuttle and in 10min were in the centre of the city at Plaza Arturo Prat with clock tower in the middle.
We started to walk on pedestrian street toward the ocean, but then decided to turn around an go to highly rated Esmeralda Corvetta museum.

This museum is a replica of the Esmeralda Corvette, which after 23 years of service sank in the Naval Combat of Iquique on May 21, 1879. It is a pride and the main attraction of Iquique.

We came to this museum about 10 minutes before opening time, but they opened the gates for us and let us go in. We purchased tickets and audio guide in English.

The original boat was build in England for Chilean navy. It is a sail boat with a steam engine. It was equipped with 9 cannons, which had a fire ring range of 3km.
In this replica of the boat you could see how the officers and sailors lived, eat, worked and spent free time at the time in the sea.
We spent about 45 min in the museum and walked back to the big plaza, stopping at the fish market. It is always interesting to see how locals live and shop.
We walked back to pedestrian street and continued toward the ocean.
At that time most of the businesses were closed. Probably due to the early hours or because it is Sunday.
The waterfront walk was very pleasant.
We walked pretty far, passing beautiful long beach. By noon there were lots of locals on the beach, but not many swimmers. The water was pretty rough and as we understood quite cold. There were many 🏄‍♀️.
By 12:30 pm we turned around and decided to go back, but found a nice looking cafe with wonderful people. It was a small vegan restaurant. We ordered one vegetarian pizza. Delicious.
The service was very slow, but we had nowhere to rush and had a nice conversation with a couple from our ship.
We walked back to the shuttle and were on the ship by 2:30pm.Read more