Azapa Valley

Azapa Valley in Chile is a fertile and narrow oasis, framed between two sere hills and divided by the summer season-running "San Jose" river . It is located three kilometers from Arica. This jewel of the north has a unique climate that permits the farming of a great variety of fruits and vegetables throughout the year, in addition to the unique olives of Azapa, famous for their violet color and bitter flavor that also give birth to a strong-tasting oil.

Some of the world's oddest mummies from the Chinchorro culture are in the Museo Arqueológico San Miguel de Azapa in Arica. Many ruins of the Chiribaya culture (900 to 1400 CE) are in the Azapa Valley.

One of Azapa's more interesting places is the hometown of artisan Jose Raul Naranjo Meneses, the Andean resort town of Parinacota, a town full of craftsmen. From Hualles Street to passages around the Manuel Castillo Ibaceta roundhouse, one may find a diverse array of crafts available to tourists (and crafted on site) of stone sculpture and wood, archaeological reproductions, ocarinas, archaeological ceramics from the north of Chile, designs on fabric, weavings, seaweed, utilitarian and decorative ceramics, as well as crafts and sculptures in metals.

In addition, a regionally famous restaurant, "the Inn", offers typical Chilean meals as well as international cuisine. It is open Monday through Sunday, 9:30am to 1:30pm (closed for siesta!)and 3:30pm to 8:00pm. The rest of the region offers other attractions, such as Chuño Hill, a place of many petroglyphs, and the Gorge of Acha, with its geoglyphs and their prehistoric camps.

Another location, the Cerro Sombrero (Hat Hill) boasts geoglyphs and a pre-Hispanic village perched on the side of the hill and made up of wood dwellings surmounting natural stone terraces. Historical studies have indicated that this establishment had as many as 500 houses between 1000 and 1400 A.D., a significant era of regional developments within Arica culture. The occupants of these constructs were agriculturists who maintained a substantial commercial exchange with Andean highland people. This commerce took place by means of llama caravans, which brought products of the highlands such as charqui, quínoa, wool, etc., down into the lowlands. This merchandise was traded for the products made by the populations of the low, coastal valleys: maize, red pepper, fish and seafood. Atoca, figures made of stone, represent a typical caravan of llamas with their guide, preceded by two dancers with anthropomorphous characteristics, and depict scenes of the caravan traffic that was carried out between coastal peoples and the peoples of the highlands.

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Wikipedia