Where are we?!?

Standing in front of Lago Chungará and Volcán Parinacota

Our new friend, Señor Llama

Some flamingos on the salt flat (or Salar in Spanish)

As I mentioned before, we had a four-day weekend this past week. Thursday was a naval holiday, and we got off Friday as a 'sandwich.' In Chile when there's a holiday on a Tuesday or Thursday, workplaces will give employees the sandwich day (Monday or Friday) off to make it a nice, long weekend. And for that, I love Chile!!

Anyway, a few friends and I decided to take advantage of this time off and travel further than a normal weekend would allow. So Molly, Jillian, and I bought tickets to fly up to Arica (the northern most city in Chile before Peru) Thursday morning. We arrived around 10:30am, rented a car, went to the closest grocery store (Lider, of course), and headed straight for the Parque Nacional Lauca.

The drive itself was one of the most amazing things I've seen. The city of Arica, while on the coast, is a complete desert. We drove through the only highway, Chile 11, in northern Chile, passing sand dunes (more like mountains of sand), canyons and eventually greener mountains. After stopping at the cutest family restaurant (for pastel de choclo and sopaipillas) and about three hours of driving, we finally made it to the park around 5:30pm. We stopped into the ranger station (park rangers here are called CONAF), and asked them about the best route to Lake Chungará to set up camp for the night. They told us, first of all, it was way too cold to camp, with temperatures dropping below freezing, and two, we'd never make it there before dark. They recommended driving to the closest pueblo in the park, called Parinacota.

By the time we pulled up to Parinacota, it was almost completely dark. There were only two people in sight, and fortunately one of them owned a small refugio. He had a room with three twin beds, no hot water and no stove. Luckily, Molly packed a camping stove (since we originally planned to camp), so we heated up water in our tiny room for tea and oatmeal. After only being in the park for about an hour, we already had splitting headaches from the altitude. The park ranges from 3000-6300m above sea level, yikes! Needless to say, we went to bed early Thursday night.

Friday morning we woke up and explored the pueblo of Parinacota a little bit. The town was built in the 17th century and it only has 25 inhabitants during the year. We definitely felt like we were in a different world. When we hopped in the car to head further into the park, we realized we used a half a tank of gas driving from Arica to the park, so we decided to search for people that could lead us to gas. We knew we'd never be able to make it through the weekend on a half a tank of gas. We drove (and by that, I mean I drove...I forgot to mention we could only rent a manual transmission car, and since I was the only one that knew how to drive it, I drove basically the entire time) to the closest police station and found out the closest gas station was in Arica...three hours away. We started to panic, but decided to keep asking around, hoping someone would have a tank of gas they could sell us.

So we headed further into the park towards Lake Chungará and Volcán Parinacota. It was one of the most incredible sights I've ever seen in my life. We stopped for a picnic by the lake and volcano. I'd never been more excited to eat peanut butter and jelly in my life! We asked a few people at the rest area if they knew of someone that sold gas, and fortunately one of the indigenous people that lives in the park had 20 liters to spare. After resting for a little bit and eating lunch, we took the little old man back to his pueblo (called Chucuyo) to fill up our tank. Thank goodness!

Once our fuel was replenished, we drove more and more through the park, searching for our finally destination-the salt flat. Along the way, we saw tons of llamas, alpacas, vicuña (animals that look like a cross between deer and llamas) and flamingos. We stopped every so often to take photos and soak in the beautiful landscape. We kept asking ourselves, 'Where are we??' None of us had ever experienced anything like this in our lives. So you can imagine the quote of the weekend was, 'Where are we?' Then, I even started giving Molly driving lessons since there was no one in sight! Her biggest challenge would be manning the dirt roads, haha. At one point we came to a river that had no way to get across but power through...I took over driving for that part. It was so scary but so much fun!!

We finally arrived at the Salar (or salt flat) around 5pm and looked for our refugio CONAF told us would be open. When we pulled up, however, there was no one in sight. After fifteen minutes of waiting and banging on the door, we finally gave up and decided to ask the Carabineros (or Chilean policemen) what to do. They told us they hadn't seen anyone at the refugio all day, but they would keep their eyes out. They also said that if they didn't show up, we could crash there for the night because it was already getting dark and there was no way we could drive back towards the entrance of the park before the sunset.

Eventually we (and a French couple that was also stranded) took up the Carabineros offer to crash at the police station. Fortunately they had a room with three twin beds that they generously gave up for us three girls. We brought all of our stuff in, made some dinner and were hanging out by the fire when one of them asked if we'd be interested in going on patrol with them around the salar. We had nothing better to do, so we took them up on their offer! We drove around the park for about an hour with the headlights of the SUV off as they searched for people wandering through the park (most likely people illegally crossing the border into Chile from Bolivia or Peru). The Carabineros had night-vision goggles on, and at one point, they let us get out and try them out for ourselves. It was so cool! Then, they took us to the Bolivian border so we could say we went to Bolivia on our trip! What an adventure...I couldn't believe it!

Saturday morning we woke up, had breakfast, and continued on our journey. We took some photos around the salt flat with the flamingos and vicuña and set out to find the thermal baths (hotsprings) we kept hearing about. After about two hours of driving, we finally found them and had a nice picnic before leaving the park. We arrived back in Arica Saturday night to our hostel around 7pm, showered (for the first time in three days! I love being dirty, haha) had a seafood dinner on the beach, and crashed.

On Sunday we explored the city a bit, including the Morro-a HUGE rock on the coast that was the site of battles between Peru, Bolivia and Chile for what is now northern Chile. It was cool to take pictures of the city below and experience a little more of Chile's history. Finally, we went to an archeology museum on our way out and saw mummies that pre-date mummies in Egypt. I had no idea Chile has the oldest mummies in the world!

As with trips in the past, I couldn't begin to fit all of my photos on this blog, so check out my picasa album under 'Parque Nacional Lauca and Arica' to see them. Not all of them may be up yet because I'm still waiting to get some from my friends (since I was driving the whole time, I couldn't get pictures of everything I wanted!)

Now I'm safely back in Santiago and adjusting to another week at school...let's hope it's not as much of an adventure as this past weekend!

Love you all!
LG