Arica and Lauca National Park

---

Hello,

Well, we have made it to Peru. We are currently in Arequipa, but we´ll get to that later. We have had a number of very busy and unplanned for days recently.

On the 28th we overnighted to Arica. Arica is a beach resort town in far northern Chile about 20 km (12 miles) away from the Peruvian border. We were originally planning on traveling to La Paz, Bolivia from Arica. However, over the last week or two, there have been large protests in La Paz with the protesters blocking all the roads leading into and out of the city. So we arrived in Arica, having learned only the night before that Bolivia was having issues (we are not always the most up to date on news). So our plans had to change quickly.

We arrived in Arica at 7 am on the 29th and debated whether to go to Peru immediately or rest for a day in Arica. We opted to stay and had little idea that we would be there 4 days later. Arica doesn´t look that appealing from first impressions. The entire area around the town is just sand, sand, and only sand. We are still in the desert and were told that the average annual rainfall is 2mm.

We checked into the Sunny Days hostel, which is run by a Kiwi, Ross, and his Chilean wife, Beatriz. Ross was probably the most helpful person we have met on the trip. He has a great hostal with a yummy breakfast (rare in South America) and a good vibe. Also checking into the hostal where a Aussie couple, Dean and Tegan, who we have pacing for about a week. They were on the last 2 overnight buses with us. We didn´t do too much that first day. Checked email and walked along the beach. We decided that Arica was so relaxing and the hostal was so nice that we needed to spend another day there.

Near the Bolivian border on the road to La Paz is one of the finest national parks in Chile, Lauca. We had wanted to see it, but didn´t think we would get a chance because the traffic to La Paz is virtually nil due to the roadblocks. The only way to get into the park was with a tour. On our second day in Arica, we met a German, Thomas, who was trying to organize a trip to Lauca. Thomas, the Aussies and we went to investigate getting into the park. The one day tours where too short, with too much driving time and too much elevation gain for one day. The 2 day tours where too expensive. We figured that we wouldn´t go to the park and spent the day going to the top of the morro in Arica and hanging out.

But things changed again that night when we learned we could take a bus to Putre, a town just outside the park, and then hire someone to drive us around the park since we had the numbers to make this an economical option. We added another person to our group, Nelly, a girl from England, and set off for Putre the next morning.

Putre was beautiful and small. It is about 3500m (11,000 ft) above sea level and has two hostels and maybe four restaurants to eat (all with very limited menus, usually with about 2-3 options, like cazuela or alpaca. One cannot be picky.) We arranged for a guide from Arica to take us on a tour of the park the next day and then drive us back to Arica. We spent the rest of the day doing little with the exception of walking behind the town to go lounging in the grass. As we walked along a trail from the days of the Incas, locals were tending their sheep and cattle. It was a wonderful day.

The next day, we went on our tour of Lauca National Park, which is on the altiplano. The altiplano averages about 4200m and is the same thing as the puno we visited in Argentina on the Train to the Clouds. We had a another great day. We didn´t get to do much hiking, but we got to see many of the highlights of the park. There are a number of massive volcanoes that pop up throughout the park and in between are lakes and meadows. Amazingly, the road peaked out at about 4600m (almost 15000 ft). We saw lots of vicuña, alpaca, birds, and vizcaya. Later, in the afternoon, we visited some natural hot springs and had a swim.

We went back to Arica that night and the next day, Dean, Tegan, Thomas and we headed to Peru. To get across the border, we used a colectivo. The colectivos are large cars that run the 60 km between Arica and Tacna, the Peruvian city on the other side of the border. They wait until they get 5 people in the car and then make the drive. It was nice because we went down to the station and since we had 5 people ready to go, we were able to get the drivers to bid down to get our service. We went with a young driver for about USD$4 per person. He was cool and even stopped to let us take pictures at the border.

We went to Tacna to catch a bus to Arequipa, where we are now. We spent about 2 hours in Tacna, never leaving the bus station, because it wasn´t a very pleasant town. The bus station was very busy and a lady from the tourist office came up to us and talked to us for probably 20 minutes or so, giving us advice, telling us what to do and what not to do, and which buses to take. The security guard also kept a close eye on us GRINGOS. We were happy to leave Tacna for someplace a little safer. We had a fine 6-hour journey to Arequipa, with the highlight being BINGO on the bus. And that's where we are now.

We hope everyone is doing well. We'll talk to you later.

Ryan & Ana

---