I'm back in Arica again, after spending 1 night and two days in PN Lauca.
The visit to Lauca was great, and quite different from the guided tours that I'd taken in Peru. I caught a bus to Putre, outside the park by a little bit, and wandered around there trying to figure out how to get up to the park.
Putre is a small town high in the altiplano, and is a splash of green amidst a landscape of brown hills. There are only a couple hundred people living there now, though at one time there were as many as three thousand. There is a stong military presence in the town, as it's close to the boarder of both Bolivia and Peru. I asked someone if the border politics were friendly. "Not really," was about the only answer I got. Chile has a policy of one year mandatory conscription, and it certainly feels like they have a sizable military as a result. However, the military personal were quite friendly, and generally seemed content to be where they were.
I ended up hiring a car to take me back to the main road, where I waited for a different bus. I took that bus the rest of the way into the park, and got off at the conaf refugio right next to Chungara lake. The view from here was absolutely spectacular -- a large, nicely symmetric volcano was reflected in the lake on one side, and beautiful mountains managed to almost completely encircle it. From behind us, a stream ran down to lake, creating a green vally where domestic llamas and alapacas, as well as wild vicuņas grazed.
I walked down the road alongside the lake for a couple hours. The road was largely empty, save for a big truck passing once every 15 - 20 minutes. The lake was absolutely heaven for birds, as it's very shallow for quite a distance. After about 20 minutes of walking, I saw my first-ever wild flamingo. The lake was full of them!
At the end of the lake was a control station for trucks coming across the border. I spent a little while chatting with one of the truckers from Boliva, who told me that, while Chile was beautiful, Bolivia was even better looking. He offered me a ride back to the refugio, which I was tempted to take (just walking at 15,000 feet is a bit of work) but I decided to walk back instead. I didn't see him pass me during the whole time I was walking back, so I think I did well to decide to walk.
When I got back to the refugio -- a shelter with four beds, and a few camp sites -- I ran into a pair of Swiss birders. They offered to take me out and show me some of the birds, which was awesome. Their excitement at being there and seeing the birds was contagious, and it made for a really fun evening. They had with them a telescope and a couple good pairs of binoculars. They identified the flamingos as Chilean flamingos. It was great to be able to see them through a telescope -- they're truly beautiful birds. They also told me that the bird that I had decided was a cross between a duck and a puffin was a giant coot. The giant coots build little islands for nests, and are quite territorial -- all over the lake there were these 1-2' diameter islands surrounded by 25' of clear water, fiercely guarded by the coots. They names at least 10 more species of birds for me, before it got windy and cold and we headed back.
I decided to camp outside, rather than using a bed, in part to save money, and in part because I wanted to be outside. That was absolutely the right decision. It was one of those magical nights that made me fall in love with camping, and which I want to share with anyone when they ask why I like camping. The sky clear, and the stars of the southern hemisphere were a complete jumble above me. It's strange not recognizing anything in the sky -- I'm surprised at how wrong it looks. The mountains and the lake were visible by the light of the moon, though it was not yet visible above the horizon.
I curled up in my sleeping bag, and for one of the first times on the trip listened to music for a while. Most of the time, I feel like bringing the iPod was a mistake -- I haven't wanted to use it much, and it's a piece of electronics that I need to charge if I'm going to use it and it's likely to be stolen at some point. On the other hand, at the times when I've wanted it, I've been extremely glad to have it. Music has a way of making us feel at home and making us happy, that I haven't found in anything else, really. Yesterday I was feeling a bit lonely and just wandering around Arica (I've spent too much time here, I think) when I heard the new Oreja de Van Gogh album playing from one of the department stores. It was really nice to just wander around the store, listening to music the I knew.
In Lauca, the next morning, I felt a bit of altitude sickness in the morning. I was hoping that I'd be okay, because I had finally adjusted to the altitude in Puno, but spending a couple days on the beach had done me no favors in that department. I decided that I'd be beter off to head back down to Arica than to try to climb one of the 5 or 6,000 meter peaks in the park. The first bus back down was supposed to come by sometime around noon, so I had the whole morning in the park. I spent most of it talking with one of the people that worked for conaf (the equivalent of the national park service, in the states). He made his living selling things (hats, sweaters, etc.) to tourists that stopped by the park, but was working for conaf for a while as a supplemental income. One of the most interesting questions he asked me was what could someone like him -- an intelligent middle aged man without any special education (college or similar) who doesn't speak any English -- do in the US to make a living while learning English? I didn't, and still don't, have much in the way of a good answer to that question.
Tonight I'm heading to San Pedro by way of the night bus. There should be more grigos there, by quite a large margin, from what I gather. Right now, I feel like this will be a welcome change, as I have had only two conversations in English since I arrived in Arica. My Spanish has improved tremendously, though. I'm still missing a lot of vocabulary, and I still have to think to conjugate verbs, but its much, much better than it was when I left.
Posted by vanwie at December 17, 2003 09:09 AM