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Published: January 30th 2006
Cactus Candelabro
These monsterous cacti only grow about 5-7 mm per year! These things look like nasty trees, reaching about 3 to 4 metres high.A week has passed since we left Arequipa and headed south into Chile. The long drive through endless desert of southern Peru has given new meaning to the word "barren". Needless to say, with only sand to watch for as far as the eye could see, the 8 hour journey from Arequipa, Peru to Arica, Chile was pretty boring. At least the bus attendants (yes, the buses have attendants) were willing to put the English subtitles on the movies and entertain us with a rousing game of bingo. We didn´t win... and I am glad because the "winner" had to sing a karaoke song on the bus in front of everybody. Glad it wasn´t me who was supposed to belt out some mysterious Peruvian top-40 tune.
On arrival in Arica, it became quite obvious that despite the town´s reputation as a national beach destination, the town is pretty non-descript. Yes, there are beaches, but they are nothing to write home about, and so I won´t. So aside from a few hours blinding the Chilean tourists with our glowing white Canadian bodies, Arica simply served as a jump-off point to Lauca National Park. This park proved to be a tough little
Our Hosts at Parinacota
Couple of alpaccas who welcome visitors to the small town of Parinacota, smack dap in the middle of Lauca National Park. nut to crack. With very limited public transport services to the area, the easiest options were to take a tour (ARGH! Not an organized tour!) or rent a car. We opted for the later.
The trip there is a long slog, up the entire way. I don´t look forward to taking the bus up and over, as we will have to when we go to Bolivia. The majority of the drive was through country that resembled my conception of Mars... steep, mountainous, reddish, and barren. Before reaching Lauca National Park, the most vegetation we encountered was the threatened Candelabra Cactus, which only grows between 1700 and 3000 meters.
The park itself was fantastic. With the valley bottoms situated at 4500 metres, and volcanoes reaching as high as 6500 metres, the air was thin and the rain was frequently bordering on snow. We definitely felt the altitude... even tying your shoelaces could leave you breathing hard. Fortunately, aside from one morning, we didn´t suffer from pounding heads and queesy stomachs as some do.
The park lived up to its reputation as a wildlife-viewer´s paradise. Despite one day of intense rain, we still managed to enjoy a bit of sunshine,
Volcana Parinacota
Parinacota... 6500 metres UP! and used this day to our full advantage. The beautiful alpine meadows (bofedales) were teeming with birds, including Chilean Flamingos, Giant Coots and Andean Geese. We also saw plenty of alpacas (llama's mid-sized cousin), vicuñas (llama´s smallest cousin) and vizcachas (funky bunnys with long curly tails and massive whiskers). I even managed to have a close encounter with some type of fox. He seemed rather pissed at me, and barked at me repeatedly in some high-pitched yelp.
To finish it all off and take the edge off of the cold, damp afternoons, we enjoyed ourselves at lovely hot springs just outside of the park, near the town of Putre. The hot springs were complete with some wicked mud pools and a scalding hot tub, putting it on par with many of the nicer hot springs back home in BC. Slopping that red mud all over us probably added more colour to our skins than all of our days in the sun. And it didn´t give me a sunburn either.
We are now back at sea level in Arica, and are organizing our trip into Bolivia. So this might be our last opportunity for some time to enjoy some
Everbody´s Favourite Pink Bird
The Chilean Pink Flamingo! Did you know it is pink because of the shrimp that it eats? real sun, and get some genuine colour to our skin, beyond the lingering red tinges from the mud baths.
Hasta luega!
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chris j
non-member comment
neat photos
really neat wildlife photos, better than a zoo! once again, reading your blog gets me pumped on travelling - i either have to pay up for my ecuador flight today or give it up, though this isn't a big concern. today hoping to find out if i'm still in the running for a whistler job, or its habla espanol for me! see you guys! chris