Antofagasta Audioguides

Antofagasta was founded in 1868 on the edge of the Atacama Desert, the most arid nonpolar place on earth, where years can pass without a drop of rain. Chile seized the city from Bolivia in 1879 during the War of the Pacific, and the copper and saltpeter fortunes that followed built a city of surprising grandeur along a harsh coastline. On Plaza Colon, a clock tower erected by the British community in 1912 replicates London's Big Ben, a testament to the English engineers and merchants who came here following the mines.

Standing at the waterfront, you are looking at one of the world's great natural harbors, backed by copper-colored cliffs and the silence of an endless desert.

Drive 16 kilometers north and the land throws up La Portada, a natural sea arch rising from the Pacific as a cathedral of layered rock. At the Tropic of Capricorn monument a few kilometers outside the city, a solar calendar marks the exact astronomical line with a precision that feels right for a city where the sky is almost always perfectly clear.