Adventures in South America: Putre, Chile

Yesterday I left La Paz by bus and came across the border west into Chile.

I took a minibus from down the street from my hostel to the bus terminal, only I missed it the first time, so ended up having to get off and come back.  Good thing the minibuses only cost 2 Bs (~40 cents).

The La Paz bus terminal is a interesting place, with countless stalls for bus companies and various other services offerings.

I had bought a ticket online, but still had to pick the actual ticket up at my bus company's office.

The bus left on time, or a few minutes late, just after 13:00.  Besides passengers, I realized the bus terminal was also functioning as a coca leaves shipping depot.

Traffic was awful as we wound our way out of La Paz and up to El Alto, where we stopped again to pick up more passengers.  After that though we were served a little lunch and the views were absolutely tremendous as we traveled through remote western Bolivia.  Much to my surprise, it reminded me of the Mongolian steppe in many ways, with herds of sheep, cattle, and llamas or alpacas (of course the latter are not in Mongolia), roadside shrines (albeit not Buddhist/shaman as in Mongolia), and low-lying, dusty vegetation.  My camera does not do the landscape justice, but I tried to photograph as much as I could.

I am not sure what these structures are, but I probably saw at least twenty of them, always in a group, and they were sure intriguing to me!

Close to the border these volcanoes became visible.

In many ways the bus was the most comfortable I have ever ridden on, with what they call semi-cama seats (which I assume translates as something like semi-recline-able).  And I suppose given the horrors South American bus travel can be, I have nothing to complain about.  But, I had slept miserably the night before, and so was extremely tired and had a headache.  Actually, I was probably suffering from altitude sickness somewhat, because my stomach was also a little queasy, and then the air and, frankly, smell, on the full bus was not helping.  I was stuck against a window, which did allow for some great views and chances for photos, but meant I felt very trapped.  Then, when we arrived at the border and an assumed chance to finally get up after 5+ hours of driving, we were held on the bus for another 45 minutes while two other buses cleared customs.  In all we were at the border two hours, which meant once we got into Chile it was now dark, and sadly there went my chance at seeing the famous Lago Chungara, which we drove right by.

In any case, actually I started getting claustrophobic and panicked over the next hour, stuck in the dark in the oppressive air, beginning to thirst tremendously and worry that I would not be able to find water when I arrived at my destination.  At one point I even said to myself "I don't want to ever travel again"!  Ultimately, I am really just quite soft when it comes to travel, but this particular bus trip, which really should not have been that bad, ended up being the worst I have ever done.

The bus's destination was Arica, Chile, but I only wanted to go to Putre, more or less halfway between the border and Arica (which is on the Pacific).  The man at the ticket office had printed "Putre" on my ticket, but with my lack of Spanish I was nervous the bus driver might not realize or remember.  I brought it up to him at the border, but his nonchalant answer did not give me a lot of confidence.  Putre is an Aymara village along the highway between Boliva and Arica, and the bus does not actually pass through it, but (I had read) will drop people at the highway if they ask.  Anyway, it turned out another passenger was getting off at Putre as well, and he aggressively made his way to the front of the bus, so there was no doubt we would stop.

Once off the bus the other passenger did not seem the slightest bit interested in me, and struck out ahead quickly down the road.

It is about five kilometres from the highway to Putre, and I was prepared to walk it.  But, it was now after 21:00 and very dark (although there were more stars in the sky than I remember ever seeing before), so the walk down the unlit road did not seem especially appealing.  I noticed the other passenger crossed the road and waited, as if for a ride.  We were literally only off of the bus for two or three minutes before a smaller shuttle bus stopped to pick him up.  I was 50 metres down the road from him by now, and the bus pulled over for me, too.  "A Putre?" I asked, and the driver said "Si," and waved me in.  So that worked out super well and was a great way to end my otherwise stressful day of travel!

I checked in at the Hostal Pachamama, and more or less went straight to bed.

I woke up after 8:00, amazed at how well I slept and feeling exponentially better.  My phone told me it was 1 degree Celsius, but when I stepped outside it felt a LOT warmer than that.

I walked to the village square, just a couple of blocks or so away.

They have some type of monitor here to indicate radiation levels, and suddenly I was realizing that despite cold temperature, there was probably a high risk of sunburn, and I did not have any sunscreen.

I stopped at this restaurant to eat breakfast.  

I was given a verbal menu, and my lack of Spanish was made quite obvious.  But, I managed to pick something out from the list that was mostly meaningless to me, and ended up with a coffee and white cheese sandwiches.

After breakfast I walked around the village a bit to try to figure out how and where I would catch a bus to Arica later in the afternoon.

Eventually a lady at the (much-maligned online) tourist office was very helpful and spoke wonderful English and explained my bus options.

So, somewhat confident that all would work out, I set out on a hike.  I was inspired both to do this particular hike and more generally visit Putre by this website, and especially the excellent photography: http://ai.stanford.edu/~latombe/mountain/photo/chile-2015/putre-2015.htm.

According to that website, the hike I did was about 10 kilometres round trip, and it was tremendous!  It was fairly simple to figure my way out of the village to the west, most of which involved descending further into the valley.  Apparently oregano is what is most commonly grown on the terraces around the valley, but there are also some animals, and I saw horses, cows, pigs, and sheep.

Here you can see the stonework from an irrigation canal the dirt road followed for probably about half of my hike.

Just a little ways out of the village I passed a little roadside shrine.

A lot of the landscape up here reminded me of hiking around Phoenix, Arizona.

It was here I finally crossed the irrigation ditch and now was really on a trail and not a single lane road.

The irrigation ditch terminated in this reservoir.

Up ahead here you can see the white cross at the summit, which actually I had been able to see all the way back in Putre, only I did not realize it was in fact my destination.  I was about 75 minutes outside of Putre now.  By now, while the weather was gorgeous, I was also sunburning so badly that I had removed the legs of my zip-off pants and made a scarf so as to protect my neck!

Evidently the cross recently received a fresh coat of paint, since there was a paint can and paint brush right next to it.

The view further to the west was amazing

And here is the view back towards the village. 

After about five minutes enjoying the summit, I set out back down towards Putre.

On the way back down I was interested by these animal pens:

Sometime after noon I was back in Putre, and I ate an alpaca steak for lunch.  I went back to the hostel to shower and get my bag, then caught the bus to Arica at 14:00.

This bus ride was much more pleasant than yesterday's.  The bus was mostly empty, and the air was better, and again the views were great.

It seemed that the desert got drier and drier as we descended, with less and less vegetation.  Once we were very close to sea level we passed this solar farm, probably the largest I have ever seen.

We were in Arica before 17:00, and it was a short walk from the bus terminal to my hostel, the Hostal Sunny Days.

After checking in, I caught a bus downtown to mail a postcard and see a bit of the city before it got dark.

The coolest building was Arica's cathedral, which almost looks German to me with its wood framing.  

From the centre back to the hostel I took a bus along the ocean, and walked back from there.

I really did not get to see much of Arica given how late I got in, but it seems like an interesting place.  Now I am turning in because I need to be up fairly early to catch my flights to Buenos Aires!