CHILE, Iquique | Chile Hotels

Iquique

Iquique in Tarapacá (Chile)

Iquique guide

If you know how to enjoy life and leisure is one of your favorite sins, Iquique will steal your heart. Set right by the ocean, among palm trees and tall buildings, taking a ride down the promenade in an open-top car or having champagne for breakfast won’t seem crazy at all.

Spend your day by the sea, enjoying the sun on a recliner, discover the ocean floor of the Pacific while diving or get on a jet-ski to enjoy the waves. On its beaches, nothing seems impossible and nightlife is enjoyed to its fullest in its Bohemian bars, where the cultural mix is evident.

Visit the Duty Free area, a trading spot with countries from the Mercosur and Southeast Asia; you’ll enjoy having a credit card when visiting the Mall. True paradise for shoppers, here you’ll find anything from electronics to high-end perfumes.

Enjoy amazing food at its restaurants with ocean views and try the traditional mango sour: a drink based on the creamy tropical fruit which is one of the city’s treasures together with the guayaba, grapefruit and lemons which grow in its oasis.

Iquique’s Historic District

Walk around downtown Iquique and let yourself be transported to a time where ladies wore taffeta and used parasols, and men handlebar mustaches. Be amazed by the buildings that maintain the glamour of the abundance of saltpeter times.

Start by admiring the architecture of the Arturo Prat Avenue Customs Office, which also houses the Navy Museum, or walk along the Passenger Pier. There you can get a boat to visit the exact site where the Esmeralda corvette sank during the famous Iquique Naval Battle.

Food in Iquique

The cuisine in the North of Chile is characterized by a variety of legumes and cereals, due to the arid climate. Within the most common ingredients are quinoa, a staple in the Inca culture, also is the potato, carrot and various tropical fruits like mango, passion fruit and guava.

Among typical dishes are roast alpaca cooked on firewood, chuño which is a soup-based Popes alpaca, onion, wheat and other vegetables. Also you can find al types of seafood and fishes to make differents dishes.

Further to the North, a typical sweet is the chumbeque this fact of flour, lard and layers of Orange, mango, passion fruit jams. There are also the pululos, which are a kind of very common puffed rice in the north end.

Climate in Iquique

In Iquique, the summers are warm, arid, and partly cloudy and the winters are long, cool, dry, and mostly clear. Over the course of the year, the temperature typically varies from 59°F to 79°F and is rarely below 55°F or above 82°F.

Based on the tourism score, the best times of year to visit Iquique for warm-weather activities are from late February to early June and from late August to early January.