Chile in Third Gear — Parque Nacional Lauca
Each breath becomes more and more difficult. Each footstep becomes more and more deliberate. The sky deepens in colour with every meter gained. The world around you shrinks. Spikey, unfriendly grasses turn into luminous-green mosses. The colours of the mountain around me light up. Blue sky, red, yellow and orange striped mountains and the spongey green mosses. It’s like walking onto the set of a sci-fi movie. At 4800m above sea level.
It’s hard to describe this landscape and do it justice. It’s essentially a desert but there is life all around. The terrain is foreboding. Gigantic, smoking volcanoes, deep canyons and plains as flat as a pancake. Life revolves around the volcanoes and mountains. Melting snow and underground springs feed rivers and streams that pool in grassy swamps, called Bofedales. Vicuñas, Andean geese, Giant Coots, Alpacas & Llamas among many other creatures all gather in the pools to eat the nutrient rich grass and drink the fresh, cold water. The silence is pierced by sudden gusts of icy wind. You certainly feel like an alien visitor to this landscape. There is nobody for miles in any direction and you can feel effects of high altitude if you move around too quickly.
This is the South America I had come to see and photograph. It took a bit of effort to get here but it was worth it.
The Atacama desert is the driest desert on earth. In some parts the average rainfall is 1mm per year. To put that into perspective it would take 200 years to fill a tea cup. Most of the Atacama is found in Northern Chile. It is an unforgiving piece of land wedged between the cold Pacific ocean and the high mountains of the Andes. So why in the world would we choose to visit such a place? I was asking myself that same question when we left tourist-packed San Pedro de Atacama. It seemed we weren’t the only people that found the desert alluring. Our search for peace and untouched nature led us northwards to the northernmost city in Chile — Arica. Arica is a dirty, laid back, seaside city. Dirty because it almost certainly never rains here. It is however, one of South America’s most famous surf spots and many travelers make their way to this brown, drab town to surf some really good breaks. Arica is a stepping stone to one of the most magical places I have ever been: Parque Nacional Lauca and Parque Nacional Las Vicuñas. Two of Chile’s lesser known parks and probably more famous for the highway that runs between them creating Bolivia’s main trade route with the sea.
We hired a pickup in Arica from Hertz — pronounced ‘ertz’ by Spanish speakers if you are ever looking for it in a Latin America city — and headed northwest along the Chile 11 highway to the tiny village of Putre. It was Sunday so we were lucky enough to travel on a relatively quiet day. The Chile 11 highway links Bolivia with the Pacific Ocean and is the main artery through which Bolivia receives its imports and sends out its exports. Locals told us that the average truck count per day is around 800. Suffice it to say, this road gets really, really busy. Heading inland from Arica, we turned off at a town called San Miguel de Azapa to see a fantastic little museum; famous for housing the Chinchorro Mummies — the oldest mummies yet discovered. The Atacama desert provides perfect conditions for preserving human remains and these mummies have been dated to over 7000 years old, making them roughly 2000 years older than the first Egyptian mummies. The most fascinating characteristic of some of these mummies was how they were embalmed. The skin was carefully removed from the body. The internal organs and flesh was replaced with clay, vegetable fibres and animal fur. The body was then recovered with the skin and a clay mask was put over the face. Mummification was also not reserved for the elite. Everybody was mummified including newborn babies and fetuses. The museum is really well curated and I found it incredibly fascinating being able to stare 7000 years into the past at the wrinkled hands and feet of the mummies.
We continued our drive into the mountains through the Azapa Valley and Lluta Valley before meeting up again with the Chile 11 highway. The landscape in this area is quite disconcerting. The green valleys are flanked by gigantic, bone-dry, white, sand dunes — over 500m high. Nothing grows on the sides of the valleys. Not even a single dead plant can be spotted. It is really that dry. This is where the twisty climb up to the Altiplano begins. Altiplano means “High Plains” in Spanish and has an average altitude of around 3500 metres above sea level. The only plains in the world higher are those of the Tibetan Plateau. Our destination, the village of Putre sits at 3500m — the starting point of the Altiplano under the spectacular Taapaca Volcano. With a population of roughly 2000 people, it is the largest village in the region.
We based ourselves in Putre for the following week at a cozy little guesthouse on the outskirts of the village, called La Chakana. This proved to be the exact remedy to our mediocre experience of Chile thus far. Over the course of the week we drove up to the national parks and experienced some of the most pristine wilderness ever. Best of all, there was not a person in sight, let alone beige tourists donning wide-brimmed hats and silly sunburns. Parque Nacional Lauca is famous for the Payachata twins. Two gigantic stratovolcanoes. The larger of the two, Parinacota is 6348m high and is flanked by Pomerape at 6282m high. The two volcanoes are situated on the border with Bolivia and are fronted by a beautiful, deep blue lake — Lago Chungara. Hollywood wouldn’t be able to come up with a dreamier landscape.
To the south of Lauca National Park is Parque Nacional Las Vicuñas. Vicuñas are the smallest of the camel family and related to Guanacos, Llamas and Alpacas. In fact, Llamas and Alpacas were selectively bred from Vicuñas and Guanacos. The main differences between Guanacos and Vicuñas, apart from size, are that Guanacos have a black face and Vicuñas occur at altitudes above 4000m. The park is filled with them. We saw literally hundreds along the road to the salt lake of Surire — the park’s most famous attraction. Along the way we stopped off to marvel at smoking Volcan Guallatiri — featured in an episode in the Top Gear Bolivia episode. Apart where the volcanos break the earth’s surface the landscape is flat and dry and the roads are well maintained gravel roads. The Salar de Surire is a great place to spot flamingos as they are drawn to the algae-rich, super-saline water to feed.
Each day as we headed out to the national parks and the Altiplano we became more and more acclimatized to the altitude. So we decided to climb a fairly easy mountain near Putre. I had seen photos of this place before and the mountain we wanted to climb overlooked the painted mountains. Armed with a GPS, a rough description of the trail, lots of water and suncream, we set out from the Termas de Jurasi — a complex of thermal springs just outside of Putre. The trek started at an elevation of 4000m through sharp, spikey grasses along an ice-covered river. The colours of the river bed changed from bright yellows, to dark purples to deep reds. Even though we were carrying a GPS with waypoints marking the trail we got lost a couple of times and had to double back. All the time the trail took us upwards. Soon we were at 4400m and the peak of the mountain loomed up in front of us. The only direction now was straight up the sandy slope.
It was like climbing a giant sand dune in very thin air. So thin it’s a struggle to even walk. We zigg-zagged slowly back and forth. Ever closer to the summit. At this altitude there are no plants, only Llareta moss. This is one of the oldest living organisms on earth. It takes roughly a year to grow a millimeter and some of the mosses are over 3 metres long. Their abundance on north facing slopes and their bright green colour gives the illusion of luscious valleys turned upside down. At 4600m, even the mosses stop growing. There is nothing here but sand and rocks. With each step we got closer to the summit and eventually at 4860m we reached the top.
I don’t know what the mountain was called but the view was spectacular. Way below and to the north was Putre overshadowed by the snow and ice covered peaks of Taapaca. In front of us was the Cerro de Milagro; the ‘painted mountain’ as George our guesthouse host aptly described it. Behind the painted mountain were the distinctive cones of the Payachata twins. The bands of red, yellow, orange and black of the mountains in front of us made for an unreal view. It wasn’t a particularly difficult mountain to climb — we did it on our own without a guide or any climbing gear but it certainly was a unique sight.
All my mixed feelings about Chile thus far were wiped away by visiting Putre and the surrounding national parks. We often found ourselves alone in the most spectacular places we have ever been and yet it was so easy to get there. So if you ever visit Chile, don’t bother with anywhere else in the Atacama. Hire a car, drive straight to Putre but don’t mention it to any tourists along the way. Keep it a secrect it is that amazing.
