| Submitted by: Ehud Reiter United States |
| Submission Date: 15 February 2005 |
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Part I: Lauca: A Trip to the Altiplano
Part II: Aysen: A Visit to the Frontier
Part III: Patagonia: The Voyage of the Tierra del Fuego
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Part I: Lauca: A Trip to the Altiplano
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Country description: Chile is a very long (~4500km), very thin (~200km) South American country that lies between the Andes and the Pacific. Roughly speaking, the northern third of the country is primarily desert, with bits of `altiplano' (high plateau) inland; the middle third is the fertile heartland, where 90% of the people live, and industry, agriculture, and government are concentrated; and the southern third is a Norway-type region of islands, fjords, and forests. The people are mainly of European descent, although there are some Indians left as well. Politically, the country is now a democracy, with the old dictator, Pinochet, having been turfed out in 1989. Economically, Chile is probably doing better than any other country in the continent, and there is talk of it becoming the first South American country to join the economic boom of the rest of the Pacific Rim.
Region description: One of the more accessible parts of the Northern altiplano has been preserved in Lauca National Park, which lies along the road linking Bolivia to the Chilean port of Arica (ever since Boliva lost its ports in a 19th century war with Chile, Arica has handled most of Bolivia's sea cargo). Lauca lies at an altitude of about 4500 meters (15000 feet for you non-metric types), and its only inhabitants are a few llama-raising Indians. It is known as one of the most beautiful parks in Chile, but because of its remoteness, altitude, and lack of tourist facilities, it gets few visitors except occasional day-trippers from Arica.
Saturday, morning: I woke up early to catch my day-trip tour to Lauca from Arica, which left at 7:30AM. The tour was supposed to return at 'roughly' 8PM and I wanted to go straight to the bus station to catch a night bus south, so I packed my stuff and took my backpack with me on the tour bus.
There were about 15 people in the tour, mostly foreigners but a few Chileans as well. We set off into the desert around Arica, which is supposed to be one of the most `perfect' (i.e. rainless) deserts in the world. It certainly looked pretty bare to me - in most deserts you at least see occasional cacti, but much of the land around Arica seemed devoid of any kind of life at all. The tour guide pointed out huge line figures in the distance which had supposedly been made by primitive tribes (more or less similar to the Nazca lines, I guess).
After an hour or so we started climbing into the Andes, and the countryside turned a bit greener but we all started worrying a bit about the altitude. We were going to ascend from sea level to 4500 meters in about four hours, and altitude sickness was on everyone's mind ...
Saturday, afternoon: We entered Lauca at about 1PM, and drove through the park to Lake Chungara, claimed by the Chileans to be the highest lake in South America. We saw plenty of llamas, alpacas, and vicunas as we drove through the park, and some birds and ducks as well. Lake Chungara itself was quite a sight, with plenty of birds and ducks and two snow-capped peaks in the distance. We were lucky with the altitude, as well: only one or two of the older people got sick, and they recovered after resting a bit.
The beauty of the altiplano really made an impression on me. It's hard to explain in words, but there's a certain magic to being in a 15000 foot high wilderness area - clear air, incredibly blue skies, snow-capped mountains, llamas in the distance ... Lauca was also special in that unlike other parts of the altiplano, it had a fair bit vegetation - grass, shrubs, and other greenery added a nice touch to the blueness of the skies and the whiteness of the mountains. I'd seen bits of altiplano before in Peru and Bolivia, but Lauca was much more striking.
We left Lake Chungara at around 2:30, and drove to the small (3 families) Indian village of Parinacota. The Indian's llama herds where very striking with their multitude of different colors, and they were tame enough to let us get very close when taking pictures. Llamas are really cute animals, and I bet one day someone will make a fortune by making llama dolls to replace teddy bears (interested venture capitalists can contact me at e.reiter@edinburgh.ac.uk ...). The village itself was also quite picturesque, with its center being the Indian's 300 year old church.
While I was wandering around Parinacota, I ran into Mark, another tourist who had also taken his backpack on the bus. We started chatting, and Mark asked me if I was 'also planning to spend the night here', since I had my backpack with me. I looked confused, and Mark explained that there was a refugio (tourist hut) in the village, and he was planning to spend a night or two there in order to explore the region better, and I was most welcome to join him! I started protesting that I wasn't equipped for this - my only food was a package of cookies, my sleeping bag wasn't warm enough for the bitterly cold altiplano nights, etc, etc - but then I took another look at the incredible altiplano scenery, sighed, and told him, 'Let's go take a look at the refugio'.
We headed out to find the hut, accompanied by various other curious members of the tour group. It turned out to be a building at the back of the village, more or less equipped like a primitive youth hostel. There were four bunks and lots of floor space for unrolling sleeping mats, a well-equipped kitchen with gas cookers, a bathroom, and a classroom for school groups. There was also Olga, the warden, who had just graduated from college and started working for CONAF, the Chilean Parks and Forestry agency. In fact, this was Olga's first day on the job, and she was quite curious to see what her first guests would be like. Olga apologized for the lack of electricity and hot water (the necessary equipment was 'under repair' or 'being sent up'), and said she hoped we would stay and keep her company.
Well, I couldn't say no to that, could I? Mark and I dumped our packs in the refugio's bunkroom, and then went back to the tour bus to get a lift to Chucuyo, a nearby village where I could buy some badly needed food. The bus dropped us off there and the other tour group members waved good-bye and wished us luck, as we walked into the village. Unfortunately the store was pretty meagerly stocked - all I managed to buy was a tin of peaches, a tin of sardines, and some sweets - but there was a little restaurant where Mark and I ate a reasonable dinner (and slipped a few excess bread rolls into our bags).
There was apparently a festival of some kind coming up, and after Mark and I finished eating we went outside to watch the locals practice for it. The village girls were dancing around in red skirts and bowler hats, while the men played a motley assortment of instruments. It was quite a sight, and we clapped when they stopped to take a break.
After half an hour or so of watching the dancers and musicians, we started walking back to Parinacota. It was only 5 kilometers or so, but I was a bit worried about the altitude and told Mark to slow down and take it easy! I must say that the altiplano looked even more impressive than it had from the tour bus. You feel much more a part of the environment when you're out in the open, with no human artifacts in sight, just llamas and the stark beauty of the high plateau.
It took us an hour and a half to get back to Parinacota, where we ran into Sven, another tourists who had decided to spend the night at the refugio. Sven had hitchhiked up from Arica, and I was glad to hear that he hadn't had many problems doing this - public transport is pretty scarce in Lauca, and I suspected that I was going to have to hitchhike back to Arica, unless I could talk my way onto another tour bus.
The four of us (Mark, Sven, Olga, and I) cooked a common meal, much to my relief (they were much better prepared food-wise than I was!). The meal turned out quite well, and afterwards we sat around and talked for a few hours. Olga spoke no English, so Mark, Sven, and I made our best attempts at speaking reasonable Spanish. This worked out quite well for me, as I was able to learn a few things by listening to Mark (whose Spanish was much better than mine), while at the same time avoid feeling stupid because I was able to help Sven (whose Spanish was not that great) when he had problems.
Sunday, morning: The altiplano is bitterly cold at night, and my sleeping bag is not the greatest, so between the cold and the altitude I got very little sleep. Once I got out of bed and looked out the window at the glories of the altiplano, though, I forgot all about such minor nuisances.
Mark, Sven, and I decided to head out and explore, and Olga said she would come with us. The first thing we discovered on leaving the refugio was a huge crowd of llamas in a pen, with a couple of villagers pushing them one by one into a water-filled trough. The villagers explained that the trough contained anti-parasite chemicals, and they to had bathe the llamas once a month in this solution. All very logical, but I thought it was a bit incongruous to find something as 20th century as anti-parasite chemicals in a setting and village that otherwise came straight out of the middle ages.
We waved good-bye to the villagers and headed out into the countryside. There are no marked trails in Lauca, of the kind that you find in US parks (and in the more popular Chilean parks, for that matter), but rather a series of dirt roads and walking paths used by the local Indians. Olga more or less knew her way around, and we followed her.
The altiplano was even more beautiful this day, as the weather was perfect - not a speck of cloud could be seen in the sky. We headed in the direction of the twin snow-capped peaks that dominated the region. I believe the higher of these was 6500 meters tall, which made it almost as high as Mt McKinley (the tallest mountain in N. America), but only 2000m above the plateau. At sea-level I could probably make a (long) day trip out of climbing a 2000m peak, but at 4500m I decided I had better not try it ... even though it would have been great to tell people back home that I had climbed a 6500m mountain in one day!
Olga showed us various lakes along the way, and I was surprised to see the amount of bird and animal life around them. I had always imagined that life would be pretty scarce at 15000 ft, but Lauca proved me wrong - it certainly wasn't as rich in plant and animal life as a forest, but there was as much here as you might find in scrub/ranching country (e.g., the American West), and a lot more than was found in the coastal desert!
Sunday, afternoon:We stopped for lunch at about noon, and then I decided to head back. I was starting to feel the altitude and didn't want to push things, and anyways was thinking of trying to talk my way onto a tour bus heading back to Arica, since my food was now totally gone.
It was a bit spooky heading back on my own, walking alone on the meandering paths back to Parinacota. I was a bit worried about getting lost, as the paths were not always easy to follow, but Olga told me I would be OK as long as I kept the big snow-capped peaks behind me to the right, and another mountain ahead of me to my left. The main Bolivia-Arica road was also just a few km away, and if I got really stuck I knew I could just head for that. |
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