The northern-most region of Chile is a land of barren rock and the driest desert in the world. One that has no recorded rainfall – ever. This inhospitable region is huge, towns and cities are hundreds of kilometres apart.

The entire region was once Peruvian and Bolivian territory until nitrates were discovered that could be exported at great value – so much value that Chile decided they wanted it and took it in the War of the Pacific, making themselves rich and subjecting Bolivia to poverty and landlocked status. The Chileans, who did not have the expertise to extract the nitrate, called on British and German companies to run the mines. The cities in the region grew when the mining towns were abandoned when the industry collapsed on the German invention of synthetic nitrates during WWI. Herein lays Iquique’s history.

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