Chuquicamata

Monday 25th April 1988

We got up at 08:00 hrs. and paid our hotel bill with some argument as to whether there should have been a reduction for the lack of hot showers. We walked out into the main plaza and almost immediately Evelyn, the Chilean girl from Santiago, who spoke English and Dutch, secured us a lift in a jeep to Calama.

Bill, Karin and I bundled into the back of the small vehicle trying to integrate our bodies with our substantial collection of luggage. We moved about occasionally to try and restore circulation to dying limbs as we hurtled along the black tarmac ribbon through the featureless desert terrain.

Only occasional road signs gave us clues to our progress. At last we arrived in Calama where we painfully expanded to our proper sizes and massaged cramped legs back into life. We walked to the TRAMACA Bus Station, checked in our luggage and bought tickets for the next available bus to Santiago de Chile.

We then went into the town and after a brief survey of the available hotels, we booked a triple room in the “Los Andes” for 400 Chilean Pesos per person. There was no hot water, “solamente agua pura y fria” (only water pure and free).

We bought bread, cheese and drinks and went for a picnic lunch in the main plaza by the bandstand. It was amazing how European the place was, after Ecuador, Peru and Bolivia. Clean shops with a wealth of varied goods, orderly traffic, people with pale complexions and a cosmopolitan air. We could have been in a town square in Germany.

The Tourist Office told us how to get to “the world’s largest open-cast copper mine at Chuquicamata, owned by the state”. Chuquicamata (referred to as Chuqui for short) is the largest open pit copper mine in terms of excavated volume in the world. It is located in the north of Chile, just outside Calama, at 2,850 metres (9,350 feet) above sea level. It is 215 km (134 mi) northeast of Antofagasta and 1,240 kilometres (770 miles) north of the capital, Santiago.

Flotation and smelting facilities were installed in 1952, and expansion of the refining facilities in 1968 made 500,000 tons annual copper production possible in the late 1970s. Previously part of Anaconda Copper, the mine is now owned and operated by Codelco, a Chilean state enterprise, since the Chilean nationalization of copper in the late 1960s and early 1970s. Its depth of 850 metres (2,790 ft) makes it the second deepest open pit mine in the world, after Bingham Canyon Mine in Utah, United States.

Copper mining has long been the most consistent of Chilean exports, and in the current day, it still accounts for almost one-third of all foreign trade. Yet that 33% is down from a peak of almost 75% in earlier years.

Copper has been mined in the land area between central Chile and southern Peru since Colonial times. Yet it was not until the 20th century that copper reached the importance of other mining exports such as saltpetre or silver. Before the first world war, saltpetre, collected in Chile from abundant deposits of caliche in the Atacama Desert, was the primary source of nitrates in the world.

After the World War I, because of the production of artificial nitrates, synthesized first in Germany by the combination of the Haber process and the Ostwald process, the world market for saltpetre, which was Chile's main export, collapsed. In turn, Chile's economy became heavily dependent on the copper industry. From that period, copper became known as "Chile's salary."

We took a yellow fixed-route taxi to the town for 150 Chilean Pesos each, and then a black cab to the mine Public Relations Office for 70 Chilean Pesos each. Here we sat on the steps opposite a statue of a miner with a shovel, a tribute to the mine workers, and a huge crane.

A group of gringos slowly accumulated until 13:30 hrs. when the door open and we were ushered in to fill in forms and to be issued with a green hard hat. We were taken into the mine works on a yellow coach while our guide delivered facts and figures in a well-practiced Spanish monologue.

We stopped several times at panoramic viewpoints over the enormous, terraced mine working and the various processing plants. Mammoth dump trucks swarmed about the site like huge ants. The lasting impression was the huge scale of the operation.

It seemed to be very well organised. We stopped by a safety poster which proclaimed that although a cat has only seven(?!) lives you only have one, so take care of it. From here we were issued with goggles to go with our hard hats and we were shown the hot dark interior of the Pyrometallurgy Operations Building.

Protectively clad men tended roaring cylindrical furnaces which occasionally spat out sparks and cinders. Huge crucibles stood cooling with slag or copper solidifying in them. We then returned to the main gate where we handed in our safety headgear.

A load of us bundled into the back of a pick-up truck which had been hired by a tall Swiss guy. We raced back to Calama, being stopped once at a police checkpoint. The cop seemed reluctant to condemn or condone a truck load of gringos and allowed us to proceed to Calama.

Back in town we bought some goodies for tomorrows long bus trip. The distance between Calama to Santiago is 1,618 kilometres (1,005 miles) and takes approximately about 22 hours. We then returned for a shower, more of a trickle, bien fria at the Hotel Los Andes. Karin failed to get a shower, cold or otherwise and returned to our room with a stream of Swedish obscenities issuing from her lips.

We relaxed for a while in our room, which overlooked the main street with a ramshackle wooden balcony. At 19:30 hrs. we met a group of other travellers who had been on the copper mine tour with us. We went for dinner in the Restaurante El Rincon Hipico which we had virtually to ourselves.

A huge German with a strong Irish accent kept us amused with his anecdotes as we indulged in the Chilean red wine once again. Bill had lost his bus ticket during the day so after the meal I went with him to the Bus Station to see if anything could be done.

Sadly it was closed so we walked back through the now deserted streets to the hotel.