We had spent most of a day and all the following night on the bus (the usual two seats between four), traversing the Atacama desert, the driest non-polar desert in the world, and had arrived, rather haggard, in the town of Arica in the far north of Chile, just 12 miles from the border with Peru.
Although a busy coastal port city, and susceptible to tsunamis, Arica was dry, sunny, low-rise and had a wonderfully laid back feel with its brown, sandy beaches on one side, low, sandy hills all round and 139 metre high El Morro de Arica (‘The Nose of Arica’) headland dominating everything as it rose sharply from the sea and stood above the main square at the edge of town. Despite a smattering of untoward occurrences, we had spent several very happy days here.
Now it was time to explore more widely ... for Amanda, at least.
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From: AmandaTravelling@hotmail.com To: AmandasMum@hotmail.com Subject: Venerable Volcanoes, Lustrous Lakes and Marvellous Medals Date: Mon, 7 Nov 2011 10:37
Hello, Mum,
Yesterday, we went our separate ways for the day. I took an organised day tour into the Lauca National Park, to revisit where Dave and I had stayed 10 years ago. Dave and the girls had fun in Arica.
They had got up around 7:30 a.m. and walked the mile or so out to the foot of El Morro de Arica to take part in a ‘run for the whole family (1.5k, 5k, 10k) – walking, jogging or running, we hope to see you there’ that was taking place mid-morning before the sun got too hot. Entry tickets for the run also gave free entry into a prize draw to win LCD TVs, a kitchen, fridge and ‘small components’, and I was thankful to find they hadn’t won any TVs, kitchens or fridges that we’d need to stuff into our rucksacks.
They opted for the 1.5 km fun run. To Dave’s surprise, two-year-old Poppy showed greater stamina for running than three-year-old May, but both of them ended up walking quite a lot of the way. When they did run, they held hands and cuddled and kept proudly announcing, “We are sisters!” At one point, a marshall asked Dave, in all seriousness, if the 3 of them were doing the 1.5 km or 5 km race!
They were not quite last to finish, but came in well towards the end behind quite a lot of walkers. However, at the prize-giving, they were asked to go on stage and have photos taken as they had travelled such a long way to do the fun run. So, there turned out to be 5 medallists in total: the fastest man, the fastest lady ... and May, Poppy and Dave!
Meanwhile, I set off for my minibus tour into the Lauca National Park. It departed shortly after 7 a.m. to make the 240 mile round-trip journey from sea-level in Arica up the valley of the Río Lluta to Lago Chungará (which, at an altitude of 4500 m, is one of the world’s highest lakes). ‘Breakfast’ was served just before 11 a.m. and ‘lunch’ at 6 p.m., with arrival back at the hostel at 9:15 p.m. I surprised myself by managing to understand just enough of our driver-cum-guide’s Spanish to get a basic drift of what I was seeing during the tour.
What magnificent scenery! We ascended slowly across 7 hours, pausing periodically to observe the Lluta geoglyphs on the hillsides (animal and human figures around 30-60 m long, marked out in stone), poke around the 17th century church of Iglesia de San Gerónimo in the small hamlet of Poconchile with its barren Catholic graveyard in the desert sand, and peer over the edge of a canyon near a 12th century fortress called Pukará de Copaquilla. We passed the Aymaran village of Putre on the opposite hillside, with its white rocks distantly marking out the words ‘BIENVENIDOS A PUTRE’. At one point, through the minibus windows, we saw a dense camanchaca (convection fog) sitting like a long grey sausage in the valley below and, later, a dust devil (whirlwind) that came in from the desert sand on one side and whipped across the road in front of us.
The first distant views of the twin volcanoes Parinacota and Pomerape thrilled me and brought back such amazing memories of when we visited before. In the early afternoon, we passed swampy bofedal wetlands, a sprinkling of sweet-water lakes and, shortly afterwards, arrived at the furthest point of our tour, the spectacular salt lake of Chungará, backed by Volcán Parinacota. We got out and strolled a little way towards the lake.
The wildlife was amazing. During the tour, I saw all 4 of the South American camelids (domestic llamas and alpacas, wild vicuñas on the high Altiplano, even a group of wild guanacos on the lower mountains of the Precordillera), as well as flamingos, an ostrich-like ñandú (rhea) and other birds including some sort of large coot on Lago Chungará. No viscachas (rabbit-like animals) this time, but I did see the distinctive hard llareta plant that I forever associate with them, as well as ‘candleholder cactuses’ and, on the shores of Chungará, some dainty, yellow, 4-petalled flowers just 4-5 mm in diameter.
The guide obliged my request to stop briefly in Chucuyo for old time’s sake. An Austrian girl who spoke both English and Spanish helped explain my reasons, which was useful as Chucuyo turned out to have morphed from the tiny, isolated, yet romantic hamlet where we had stayed all those years ago into an equally isolated, dusty, utilitarian truck stop, so my request seemed rather odd. Despite the two or three extra buildings and a few parked lorries, the place was instantly recognisable to me. I found the location of our old room at the rear of Restaurant Doña Mati (now with a new sign erected advertising it as ‘Restaurant Aymaran Doña Maty’) and the outside toilets and water tap had gone (perhaps they are now indoors and don’t freeze every night). The largish stone at the entrance to Chucuyo was still there, handpainted with pictures of Volcán Parinacota, flamingos and low white buildings. Brightly coloured 10 years ago, it was now pale and flaking.
As we neared Arica on our return, the setting sun cast patches of soft, orange glow on the sandy hummocks in the valley bottom ... and I reflected on how much I had enjoyed the day, despite feeling a little off-colour at one point, and how much I was looking forward to arriving back home for the night.
Sorry about the long e-mail. When did I ever send a short one?
Love,
Mandy.
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From: AmandaTravelling@hotmail.com To: EmCoalEye@gmail.com Subject: Something Else Date: Mon, 7 Nov 2011 11:43
Hi, Emily,
Yesterday, we went our separate ways for the day. Dave and the girls did a fun run in Arica and got medals! I took a 14-hour minibus tour into the Lauca National Park to revisit old memories and see the bits I’d missed 10 years ago.
It was something else! What magnificent scenery and wildlife. The culmination of the tour was Lago Chungará, backed by Volcán Parinacota and with another (not dormant!) volcano further south emitting ominous, wispy, white fumes against the blue sky. We got out and a few of us strolled a little way towards the lake – until we noticed that the ill-defined edge was becoming squidgy and that it might be a good idea not to go any closer. Last time we were here, Dave and I had hoped to walk to Chungará from Chucuyo (and, oh my goodness, how that place has changed!). There wasn’t (still isn’t) any public transport and it would’ve been an 18 mile round-trip walk, perfectly feasible for us at normal altitudes, but not in the state I found myself 10 years ago, so this was actually the first time I had seen Chungará properly.
There was something else. Don’t mention it to my Mum.
On the way out, it was a slow, steady climb for 7 hours from sea-level Arica to Lago Chungará at 4500 m. Last time I ascended to anywhere near this altitude, I had done it across several weeks and still felt unwell. Now, I was doing it as a day trip, such was my urge to see Chucuyo again. I’d had the good sense to ensure the girls stayed behind for their own safety, and Dave was happy to spend the day with them. Perhaps I should have done the same. Still, things would be fine.
I got the first inklings that things were not fine when I felt rather weak after walking back from the lake edge at Chungará. But we were beginning our descent in the minibus now: I had already made it to the highest altitude for the day and really needn’t worry. Then I started to feel a little travel sick on the minibus. Well, I thought so. Gradually and reluctantly, I acknowledged to myself that ‘altitude sickness’ also contains the word ‘sick’. But it couldn’t be that: I hadn’t felt sick or nauseated at all when I’d had it 10 years ago. It was time to use ‘mind over matter’ to suppress the nausea and I concentrated on the fact that we were continuously descending.
That was, until 20 miles from Lago Chungará, when we reached the roadworks we had come through on the way up, with manually-rotated ‘stop’ and ‘go’ traffic-control signs at either end. Quite why the Chileans felt it necessary to control the traffic in these conditions beats me. For all that the road is a major route between the port of Arica and Bolivia (landlocked since Chile conquered this part of the Bolivian coast in 1879, although Bolivia presumably still hopes to regain it as it put a navy in place in the 1960s), the road remains no more than a double-width dirt track with one vehicle coming along every 30 minutes, or occasionally 4 trucks in a row slowly labouring up the steepest inclines.
The traffic-control sign at our end was set to ‘stop’ even though not a single vehicle was coming the other way (and, even if one did, there was room for 2 to pass abreast with a bit of foresight). Hopefully, the chap would change it to ‘go’ soon. Eh, where was the chap? This is when I started losing focus, quickly followed by hope, and began to give in to the feeling of sickness. We weren’t descending any more, just sat stationary, maintaining our height for no good reason, being jiggled about as the minibus engine ticked over. The wait was interminable. Finally (after 10 minutes? 15 minutes?), someone must have appeared and changed the sign to ‘go’ – the nausea was so strong that I wasn’t really able to pay attention any more – and we re-started our descent. I had a sip of water from my flexible litre bottle, at the suggestion of a kindly, older, German chap sitting with his wife a row back from me across the aisle. I was so tired, perhaps a sleep would help stave off the sickness, I closed my eyes, ...
I wasn’t sure how long I slept but, in my half-aware state, I suddenly felt the minibus jolt in an emergency stop. I tried to ready myself back into consciousness in case I had to climb out of the bus: my life might depend on it, maybe we were hanging half over a precipice or about to catch on fire. I couldn’t quite rouse myself though, and no-one on the bus was stampeding, so I felt I had a bit more time and started to let myself drift away again. Then I heard the door beside me slide open ... this was it ... I must try to wake up now! In that same instant, an oxygen mask was clapped over my face, together with a tissue moist with something they later told me was coca loca or a name like that (some concoction of leaves from the coca plant that I’d always spurned as a local remedy for altitude sickness because of the small amount of psychoactive cocaine in it). My pulse was being taken by the kindly German chap who, by lucky chance, turned out to be a (paediatric) doctor. I became aware that my left leg felt vaguely wet and that the water bottle and sun hat I had been clutching didn’t seem to be in my hand anymore.
The German doctor and an Austrian girl, who spoke both English and Spanish and had helped me with a bit of translation earlier in the trip, filled in the gaps for me. It seems that, after taking a sip of water, I must have passed out almost immediately, before I could even get the top back on the bottle. No longer in my firm grasp, the full, flexible bottle had soon crumpled sideways with water sloshing all over my leg and then pouring out onto the floor. The Austrian girl, across the aisle a row in front of me, had noticed it about 30 seconds after the doctor had spoken to me, and turned round to tell me to be careful as I was spilling. Instead, she saw my wide-open eyes rolled up to the ceiling with only the whites showing (they weren’t closed after all) and I looked very pale. She shrieked in Spanish for the driver to stop, he said he couldn’t stop there as it was too dangerous, she shrieked again for him to stop and to stop right now, and then it was action stations with the bottled oxygen and coca loca. I had gone cold and clammy and my pulse was racing, but thankfully I was in good hands. Even my bottle and sun hat had been rescued from the floor by the doctor’s wife. Well, it was one way to break the ice, I suppose.
Seriously, though, I don’t like to think what would have happened if I hadn’t had a sip of water or if I’d managed to get the lid back on the bottle properly. Being sat on my own, how long would it have been before someone noticed and would it have been too late? I’m glad I made the trip, revisited such a special landscape and such special memories. It is even more poignant now I understand that I may never go again.
Best wishes,
Amanda.
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