The next day I go for a run in the morning along the beach. I noticed the evening before that there are hundreds of runners here, whether they use the beach or the promenade. For obvious reasons I use the promenade, knowing it will guarantee a quicker run and enable me to cover more ground. I intend to jog north up the coast for as long as I can.
I have to wonder about the name, 'Arica'. Like 'Eureka', Greek for 'I have found it' the way California did? Maybe it's supposed to be Africa, but somebody dropped the 'f' along the way?
One myth is quickly put to rest: that I will feel a lot better once I reach sea level and run accordingly. Not so. I have already become acclimatized to the high altitude, and something tells me it will be a while before I can fully enjoy the sea breeze coming off the Pacific.
For now I do, and there’s nothing more splendid than running with the beach on one side and the mountains on the other. I immediately pass a pier that is primarily used by fishermen. It is a rickety looking structure with holes in the floorboard and few railings that can prevent the fishermen from plunging into the surf below. The road next to the beach seems endless and level, the casual runner’s dream. Although I don’t mind uphills, there are plenty of those in La Paz - there’s no such thing as a run without a hill there.
I also quickly realize that there are plenty of crosses to go around on this supposedly wide and straight road as well. How can that be possible? Did people get blitzed on their way to or from the beach? Do people have licenses here? I can see it with the mountains, but on a straight and narrow highway? Then it dawns on me that those may not necessarily be dedicated to drivers, these crosses and shrines, but very likely to swimmers. That said, there are still way too many crosses on the other side of the beach road for this to be true.
I see a beached seal on the sand to my left. Seal, hmmm, means there must be killer whales, sharks, or both out there. A simple deduction from the years I lived in California.
A few miles later, I run into the Police Academy. What a dream it must be for them to be trained on the beach like that with consistent good weather. Then again, recalling California, that is not necessarily true, as hundreds of thousands of Marines who went to Camp Pendleton will confirm.
Civilization stops altogether after the Police Academy, so that there is nothing but an empty beach on the left (with bigger waves now) and assorted shanties on the right. This is no man’s land, and I can imagine there’s plenty of this in a country with a coastline as long as Chile’s and a population so relatively sparse. Hundreds of black feathered red-beaked condors circle around the beach, probably hoping I’ll drop from exhaustion.
Arica at first looks like a town in the dumps, or as some British merchant put it in the 19th Century “a comfortless, empty place”, although I am sure that Tommy Boy has neither seen the beach or the modern town square around here. The town square itself is a modern pedestrian zone four blocks deep that you won’t find anywhere in the U.S. outside of a shopping mall. And yet the U.S. makes its presence felt: besides the obligatory McDonald's, there’s a Blockbuster Video store.
But the jewel of the town is still clearly the beach. It only gets more gorgeous the further you head out of town. The waves get bigger, the beach-goers sparser, the terrain greener. I can't help but stop and gaze.
I have to wonder about the name, 'Arica'. Like 'Eureka', Greek for 'I have found it' the way California did? Maybe it's supposed to be Africa, but somebody dropped the 'f' along the way?
One myth is quickly put to rest: that I will feel a lot better once I reach sea level and run accordingly. Not so. I have already become acclimatized to the high altitude, and something tells me it will be a while before I can fully enjoy the sea breeze coming off the Pacific.
For now I do, and there’s nothing more splendid than running with the beach on one side and the mountains on the other. I immediately pass a pier that is primarily used by fishermen. It is a rickety looking structure with holes in the floorboard and few railings that can prevent the fishermen from plunging into the surf below. The road next to the beach seems endless and level, the casual runner’s dream. Although I don’t mind uphills, there are plenty of those in La Paz - there’s no such thing as a run without a hill there.
I also quickly realize that there are plenty of crosses to go around on this supposedly wide and straight road as well. How can that be possible? Did people get blitzed on their way to or from the beach? Do people have licenses here? I can see it with the mountains, but on a straight and narrow highway? Then it dawns on me that those may not necessarily be dedicated to drivers, these crosses and shrines, but very likely to swimmers. That said, there are still way too many crosses on the other side of the beach road for this to be true.
I see a beached seal on the sand to my left. Seal, hmmm, means there must be killer whales, sharks, or both out there. A simple deduction from the years I lived in California.
A few miles later, I run into the Police Academy. What a dream it must be for them to be trained on the beach like that with consistent good weather. Then again, recalling California, that is not necessarily true, as hundreds of thousands of Marines who went to Camp Pendleton will confirm.
Civilization stops altogether after the Police Academy, so that there is nothing but an empty beach on the left (with bigger waves now) and assorted shanties on the right. This is no man’s land, and I can imagine there’s plenty of this in a country with a coastline as long as Chile’s and a population so relatively sparse. Hundreds of black feathered red-beaked condors circle around the beach, probably hoping I’ll drop from exhaustion.
Arica at first looks like a town in the dumps, or as some British merchant put it in the 19th Century “a comfortless, empty place”, although I am sure that Tommy Boy has neither seen the beach or the modern town square around here. The town square itself is a modern pedestrian zone four blocks deep that you won’t find anywhere in the U.S. outside of a shopping mall. And yet the U.S. makes its presence felt: besides the obligatory McDonald's, there’s a Blockbuster Video store.
But the jewel of the town is still clearly the beach. It only gets more gorgeous the further you head out of town. The waves get bigger, the beach-goers sparser, the terrain greener. I can't help but stop and gaze.
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