The Chinchorro were fishers who lived on this coast, and they were doing something extraordinary with their dead at a time when nothing like it existed anywhere else. Around seven thousand years ago, they began to preserve their dead by taking the body apart, drying the skin and bones, reassembling them on sticks, packing the body with clay, plant fibre and ash, and covering the face with a mask of clay. These are the oldest known artificially mummified bodies in the world, older than the better-known Egyptian mummies by some two thousand years. The tradition included children and infants, and no one is quite sure why.
UNESCO added the Chinchorro settlement and mummification sites in Arica and Parinacota to the World Heritage list in 2021. The land they lived on is a thin shelf between the Pacific and the desert, with plenty of fish, shellfish and sea mammals in the cold water, and almost nothing else. They lived by the sea, fished with hooks of shell and bone, and left behind village sites, burials and middens along the shore. The dry air preserved things that would have rotted elsewhere.
The nearest city is Arica, a port of nearly two hundred thousand people about three kilometres away, and this is where the story is told best. The museum at San Miguel de Azapa in the valley outside the city holds a large collection of mummies and the objects found with them, and an explanation of the technique. It is a sober, unusual visit. The city itself sits at the foot of El Morro, a great rocky headland with a fortress on top, where a decisive battle of the War of the Pacific was fought in 1880.
For the rider, Arica is a pleasant place. The coast road is flat and straight, the climate is mild, with little rain, and the sea is cold and often misty in the morning. Fuel is easy in the city, and cafes and seafood restaurants along the waterfront serve fresh fish and ceviche. Take a layer for the morning fog and sunscreen for the afternoon, because the sun is strong and the shadows are short. Opening times at the museum are best checked locally, since they change.