17.08.2004

Volcano Parinacota Click here to see more photos!

The following night was going to be quite unsettled. We had got a small room for us four persons to sleep that night, and so the anyway thin air at now 4,200m altitude was quickly used. Xabi and Raphaïlle were the first to recognise the symtoms - strong headache and nausea - but even for our bodies the lack of oxygen was not unnoticed.
So we got up at around 5a.m. to start our descend to Putre (3,500m) to prevent worse things to happen. The drive was not one of the interesting ones, since it was still dark for most of the time. Only by dawn we were passing a police checkpost that had a look at our papers. On our way we had to cross several little creeks that were totally frozen and sometimes did not even crack under the heavy weight of our vehicle! After three hours driving we finally reached Putre and were glad to be able to move into two rooms straight away. We both took a good rest before we headed up again to the Altiplano. Xabi and Raphaïlle for their part only wanted to spend that day to recover from the stress of the last two days.
On our way to the almost 1,000m higher situated Altiplano we saw quite a few Vicuñas that were sometimes hard to make out in the grass because of their similar brown color. Having reached the Altiplano we had a grand view across the flat area with the Volcano Parinacota as a backdrop. Some of the lagoons attracted Llamas, Alpacas and Vicuñas. On our way to Parinacota - a little presentation village as it seemed to us - we got to see a single Ñandu which is the South American counterpart to the Emu or Ostrich. He was feeding on the grass next to the road but besides us noone paid him any attention.
In Parinacota there were quite a lot of people. The church was to be restaurated and so there were a lot of students from Santiago helping with this project. Furthermore there was a souvenir market where lots of tourists were hanging around. Because we did not feel comfortable inbetween all these people we went on our way to find some Flamingos since the village is named Parinacota - which means Place of Flamingos.
To find some of these pink birds was quite an adventurous undertaking since all the ways to the lagoons did not have a single sign and were not the easiest to drive on. We were quite glad to have a four wheel drive which made things much easier. Finally we arrived at one lagoon, after we had taken the wrong way of course ..., and the only thing we could make out were four pink dots on exactly the other side of this quite large lake. But we still did not give up and drove back to the Routa 11 towards Bolivia. There were still another big lagoon and the Lago Chungara to be seen. But here too we only could make out some pink spots in the far distance with our binoculars. Nevertheless it was a breathtaking view across the lake with the 6,330m high Volcano Parinacota towering above the lake.
Again tired and a bit breathless from this long day we started heading back to Putre to spent the night.