Parque Lauca
We spent the better part of an afternoon researching our options for visiting Lauca National Park, a really cool sounding park (giant volcanoes, a 4.500m lake, vicuñas, vizcachas and hot springs) that is on the border with Bolivia. We were shocked at what the tour agencies were charging for a basic 2 day, 1 night tour ($135 per person) so we once again, took the road less travelled.
We rented a car from Ghama Rent-a-Car and got a beat up Nissan pickup truck. We wanted a cheap, basic car, but they were out and we were out of time. The roads would have been fine for a car (and the gas mileage would have been nicer!) Anyhoo, we packed some food and headed from the deserty coast to the highest elevations that I have experienced. And I only suffered about a half hour of elevation sickness before bed, so my red blood cells must be working hard. The drive wasn’t too long but the scenery got old (dry, dusty desert). We saw some cool candelabra cacti and vicuñas grazing everywhere.
Vicuñas are like wild alpacas and the locals round them up once a year to shave them and set them free. Kind of weird thing to do, but a vicuña sweater will set you back about $1500, whereas the domestic docile alpaca sweater is only about $100. So there are reasons. They are cute, but my heart still goes out to the ewok alapacas and their ´fros.
We stopped in Putre, which is a little town at 3500m that has expensive gas (we used 1/2 tank in the 2 hour uphill journey and were worried to run out of gas. That was the only station we would see) and not much else. We stayed long enough to fill the tank, buy some coca leaves (since mine were taken at the border…but I learned it’s not legal to grow coca in Chile, so they import it from Bolivia…stranger still), and talk to the ranger. Yes, there’s park rangers in Chile! They had free maps and were friendly and helpful.
After we left Putre, we drove to Lago Chungara, a lake at 4517m! And I am proud to report I felt fine, except that it started hailing on us…hmm, a bit cold for camping. We didn’t expect it to be cold enough to snow, so we backtracked to a little cute ghost town called Parinacota. 10 families live in this town and there are herds of alpacas everywhere (and they all have their ears pierced with yarn pom poms, quite fashionable). We couldn’t find a living soul in the town for about 15 minutes, then an old man stuck his head out and offered to house us for the evening (for $10).
The next day we did the 1 hour interpretive trail at the edge of town and enjoyed the crazy amazing views of volcanoes (mainly Volcan Parinacota, over 6,000 m—it’s like looking at Mount Rainier, but it only being 30 minutes away instead of 5 hours like in Seattle). It looks like a melted whipped cream sundae. We had good weather the whole day and went to see the lake again with clearer views (there’s another volcano visible from the lake that you can see the smoke rising like a chimney). We did a little interpretive trail and then drove to the Bolivian border (how many bolivian border crossings will we aproach without crossing? so far 2.) and turned around and drove back on the main road.
We stopped at Las Cuevas, which had another interpretive trail (all of these complete with informative brochures! it was so fun) which lead to a lukewarm hot springs contained in a cute little stone house. We also saw a lot of vizcachas, which are somewhere between a rabbit and a chinchilla. They do not run away, either, which explains why they were hunted almost to extinction. They just kind of close their eyes and lay really still. Not the best tactic, but they were still cute.
My most memorable moment was when a pair of alpacas were laying in the road and we stopped in front of them so as to not kill them and instead of running away, they came up to the truck (one at each window) to say hi. What curious adorable creatures! My alapaca friend wanted me to rub it’s fluffy neck and I didn’t want to leave. That encounter kept me smiling the rest of the day.
We finished our day off stopping by Jujuri Hot Springs, which was wonderful! The sun was out but the air was cold, so it was nice to have a little soak. The set up is at the edge of a gorge with 3 mud baths that cascade into each other. I could only enter the lower one. The top two were HOT. The mud stunk, but people say it’s medicinal. They have a giant pool for swimming, but it must have been 100 degrees. I couldn’t swim in it, but it was nice to just enjoy the view. They also had 2 pools with a roof (nice to avoid the sunburn) and a picnic area. So far we have been to 7 hot springs, and counting.