Arica, Chile - Part 5

Posted by Amber

We continued driving and learned that Arica has a lot of olive orchards. We didn't buy any olive oil, but apparently they make some good stuff... Then we made it out to the Museo Arqueológico y Antropológico de San Miguel de Azapa. It has like 3 main sections. First, we went inside and walked through some exhibits. Matt, understanding Spanish, could just listen to our guide explain things. Fortunately for me, they also had typed up stuff in English and Spanish, so I got an English guide. It made me a little slower trying to read and then look, but it was still enjoyable. :)

Mummy family

Info on the mummies.

Bow and arrows

Pottery, human figures made from wood, and a clay whistle in the shape of a puma.

One cane and one wood comb.

Oyster shell used for snuff powders.

Mummified baby ca. 1100 BC. Only the face is covered with a clay mask. The rest of the body was left to desiccate naturally. The fully extended body was wrapped in plant fibers and placed on a carrying cradle.

1530s AD - Pottery, plates, felt hat from sheep's wool, axe, knife, harpoon tip, steel brace and nails, wood carving of the Virgin, and wooden shoe lasts (which shoes are made on).

1530s AD - same wooden shoe lasts and nails, harpoons and harpoon heads, part of a raft made of sea lion skin.

Matt wanted a picture of the loom.

Next, we took a potty break (okay, I did. Yay being pregnant :)) They had a banana tree on the walk over, and we learned a little about how banana trees work. Matt thought it was neat.

That dangly red part is the flower, so the bananas are kind of like leaves. Or something.

Bananas

After that, we headed to the fancy new part of the museum. At least this section is in partnership or funded by or something....with a university.

Room full of dead people.

Apparently there were two designations for the mummies, black and red.

I don't remember anything else about them or the designations, though. Sorry.

Daddy and Henlie checking out the exhibits.

I found Matt's new look ;)

Please ignore the stripes, that's my pregnant belly reflected in the glass....

Even babies and stillborns were mummified.

After the museum, we stopped to look at some petroglyphs. They weren't that exciting, and it was hot, so we left pretty quickly. All told, we had been out about 3 hours (which was how long I had predicted we'd last anyway), so we had our driver take us back to the hotel. Matt paid about $80 USD for our entire tour, and received $10,000 CLP (Chilean pesos) back in change from his $100 USD.

Giant Coke soccer ball we saw on our way back to the hotel :)

Back at the hotel, we thought about going to the pool, but we didn't. We did a late lunch/early dinner of room service (which had a more palatable menu than the restaurant) and we vegged, showered, and watched TV. The food was quite tasty. I had some arroz con pollo. I don't remember what Matt got, but he had french fries, which was pretty much all Henlie would eat lol.