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Published: December 13th 2007
Arrived in Arica after another eventful 10hr bus journey - people being sick left right and centre, police checking passports and some old woman wiping her grandchilds sick on the back of my chair - cheers!
The hostal we stayed in was fantastic - Sunny days - and Ross who owned it was a really nice guy - obviously knew Paulines weak spot and he gave us cake when we arrived!
The next day was spent arguing over many things such as the colour of the grass, black being white and other generally picking! The real issue was whether or not to hire a jeep and brave the Lauca Natioanl Park ourselves. After almost a full day of bickering it was Steve 1 Pauline 369! Get in!
We collected our Jeep and headed off into the unkown of the NP stopping on the way at some tiny villages such as Socorama and Putre. Having the Jeep meant we could go where we wanted and stop when we wanted which was a real change from the tours. After some DIY lunch in Putre and fending off a pesky hound, we made it into the NP and up to Lake
Chungara (4500m). Assessing the camping status we decided to check out the local village of 15 people called Parinacota where we got a free camp site overlooking a smaller lake for the night.
After purchasing a local ladies last 2 beers we set to striking camp. I immediately jumped into Ray Mears mode and started gather wood for a camp fire and tying the tent down with rocks - of course! Dinner was made in our one pot Trangia and wasn't too bad... if you ignored the mild flavour of petrol. The fire was outstanding (if i do say so myself!) and the tent appeared to be all good.
It was only in the morning after not much sleep, that we found the tent to be covered in ice - brrrrrrrrrrrrr chilly! Not the start Pauline was hoping for we let the tent thaw out whilst redering some breakfast...
We attempted a walk near the volcano and lake but didn´t get much further than 2 minutes before it was aborted due to excess flies! So we headed back to Putre for some lunch before heading back to Arica. We had to catch a bus at 1 in
the morning by flagging it down off a street corner... god bless South America!
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