Just like all respectable Peruvian cities, Tacna has a central Plaza de Armas, a main square, although in Tacna's case it is more like a long skinny triangle. But, true to form, there is the Cathedral, shown above, on one side of the Plaza. The other main feature of the Plaza, which as far as I know is unique to Tacna, is the arch:
At the ends of the arch are statues of two of the heroes of the War of the Pacific, when Tacna was taken by Chile. Their names are Bolognesi and Grau, and as a result there are a million things named after them in town. One of the main streets our bus goes on is Bolognesi, and the outdoor market where we buy our groceris is called Mercado Grau, just for a few examples. I tried to get JP to take a picture hanging out with the statues but I was not successful. He did agree to stand under the arch, though.
Unfortunately, this meant that we could see either JP or the arch well in the picture, so we had to show you both. In this area near the plaza are several pharmacies, banks, and even casinos, so we come here fairly regularly for the bank and the pharmacy, but have skipped the casinos so far. There is also a yummy ice cream place farther up the plaza.
Many of the buildings in the center are pretty, older buildings, like the one above, that have been occupied on the bottom level by businesses. Claro is a cell phone company that is all over Peru and seems to be the cheapest option, so our cell phone is a Claro phone. There are a million little stores like this in town. I have no idea what is on the upper stories of the building.
This is Calle San Martin, which forms one side of the Plaza (you can see the edge of the arch in the left of the photo) and is a fairly typical example of a nicer street in town, with a variety of building heights and stores.
This is the same street several blocks farther "up", or away from Habitat. Since we were here first thing in the morning one Saturday, everything was pretty much closed, but you can see the business signs and the buildings. Plus, here is my favorite sign on this street:
I hope you can read it--this is the SUPPA Market! Who wouldn't want to shop there? (In fact, we don't really want to shop there because it is expensive, although we did go in once in search of black beans, but we came up empty handed.
The other thing about Tacna is that most of the outskirts are surrounded by big dirt hills, like this:
We actually took this picture on our way out of town to Arequipa, but you get the idea of the hills and how stark they are. They are also a blank canvas for various signs and symbols--there is one of the shield of Tacna, for example.
I think those are the highlights of our nice little town. Enjoy!
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