Travel Guide Tarapaca

Before arriving at this village, 28 km from Huara, you will discover a mill commemorating the battle near Tarapacá during the Pacific War. It was held on 27 November 1889. Chilean troops, after conquering their adversaries in Dolores, met here the bulk of the Péruviano-Bolivian troops. After a day of a bloody struggle that cost the lives of many fighters on both sides, all the armies withdrew. Chileans to Pampa, Peruvians to Arica and Bolivians to their Altiplano.The village had already been visited by Diego de Almagro, who followed the Inca Trail in 1536, and that of Pedro de Valdivia in 1540. In the middle of the sixteenth century, this land was converted into a encomienda that depended on the Corregiment of Arica. He built a chapel in 1613. In 1768 the Corregiment de Tarapacá was founded in the capital of Dont until 1855, when the government moved to Iquique.The city retained vestiges of this lost importance: The earthquake of 13 June 2005 was completely destroyed and Tarapacá remained uninhabited for many Weeks. Today, the restoration of the stone and Adobe houses (like the church of San Lorenzo, built at the end of the th century) has been completed and the village has resumed a "normal" existence.