It is 1850. Steam pours from the great metal beast, rising into eternity. It rises past the assembled crowd of copper miners, soldiers, and industrialists. It rises past the bronze statue of Juan Godoy, the man who discovered Copiapó's deepest silver mine. It rises past the Catedral de Copiapó, where an old priest aches with quiet divinity. It rises past the verdant farmlands, past the water of the Copiapó river. If you rode the steam up and up and up into the empty blue sky, you would see a thin strip of life nestled between the harsh bluffs of the Atacama. The metal beast screams, and begins to churn forward. The Copiapó-Caldera Railway - the first railway in all of South America - is open, and Copiapó will never be the same.

A rich mining town, Copiapó is the ideal north Chilean city. It is a center of industry, culture, and government. Its silver and copper veins are deep and plentiful. It is centered on an Indian cemetery (with some remains being no younger than 10,000 years old). The people are happy, kind, and collaborative, and the city is flourishing under a local commerce boom. Originally settled as San Francisco de la Selva de Copiapó (or, Saint Francis of the Jungle of Copiapó), it has always been an oasis in the desert. It has always been the soul of Atacama.