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Provincia de Parinacota

Here you’ll find travel reports about Provincia de Parinacota. Discover travel destinations in Chile of travelers writing a travel blog on FindPenguins.

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  • Lily's stepssouth america trip
    Day151

    Ascension du Parinacota : 6300 mètres !

    October 11, 2017 in Chile

    C'est le jour J! Départ à 3h du matin... 1h30 de route jusqu'au point de départ. Au programme : 6h de montée pour 3 kms et 1200m de dénivelés (de 5100m aux fameux 6300m). On espère y arriver!

    Pour rendre les choses encore plus difficiles nous avançons sur du sable volcanique avec quelques endroits rocailleux tout de même... Sur le chemin nous passons également entre des "penitentes" (sorte de bloc de glace de 30cm mais qui peuvent atteindre 2m au mois de Juin). Ils donnent au paysage un relief magnifique! Et tout au long de la montée nous avons un paysage superbe avec le Pomerape (montagne d'à côté), le Sajama au loin, la vallée chilienne d'un côté et les plaines boliviennes de l'autre.

    On attaque la rando avec notre guide Rodrigo à 5h à la frontale. Ça pèle mais on est bien équipés. Vers 6h on assiste au lever du soleil derrière la montagne Sajama, splendide! La montée se passe sans encombre jusqu'à 5800m, altitude à laquelle Greg commence à avoir un léger mal de tête. Passés les 6000m on se transforme en zombie : dur de trouver l'oxygène et chaque pas nous paraît impossible. A certains moments nous n'y croyons même plus... mais nous y voilà : le cratère à 6300m!!! On l'a fait!

    Mais c'est pas la grande forme : gros maux de tête et nausées pour tous les deux. Du coup on ne s'attarde pas là haut. Rodrigo nous conseille de vite redescendre pour calmer tout ça. On est tellement fatigués que même la descente sur le sable fin nous paraît compliquée. 1h30 et quelques chutes plus tard nous voilà enfin à la voiture avec Gary, le fils d'Ana et Mario, qui nous attend. Il nous faudra quelques heures pour être remis à 100% de cette aventure mais on est fiers de nous! On a réussi notre challenge!    Read more

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  • The Craze for TravellingThe South American Odyssey
    Day57

    Cotacotani viewpoint

    November 25, 2017 in Chile

    After all that drama, we tried to take some pictures of the reflection of the Parinacota volcano in the Cotacotani lake but it was quite windy and we couldn't see the reflection. After that, we drove back to the main road towards the viewpoint. Here, again, we had to join the queue off the trucks waiting for the road repair. Luckily, the queue started in a few minutes and then a km away, we were able to drive off the road for a few meters to the view point. The views were amazing. We spent a few minutes taking pictures and enjoying the view and then were able to get back to the end of the truck queue and continued further along the road.Read more

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  • The Craze for TravellingThe South American Odyssey
    Day55

    Kukuli Hotel Putre

    November 23, 2017 in Chile

    We drove straight to Putre from Copaquilla. It was quite dark and around 9:30 pm when we reached Putre. The first hotel we went to was fully booked. We tried a few others but were not too happy about various things in each of them. Finally, we decided to stay at Kukuli Hotel. It cost us 30000 CLP for a night and the room was very comfortable and clean. We went around looking for a restaurant to have dinner. None were open at this hour. We asked at a small convenience store and were directed to the main square. Even here, everything was closed. Our bad luck from Arica had not fully left us yet oy seems 😉
    We decided to go back to the convenience store and biy some stuff to eat. We reached there at 11:05. It seemes the shop closed at 11:00 just a few min back. 😔 We also realized that we had got the room no 13 and it was a Friday. A coincidence???
    Luckily, we saw another shop open a few meters away. It also turned out to be a convenience store. We bought some biscuits, yogurt, juice and cakes for the dinner. This, we had it back in our room.
    We were extremely tired after a fully packed day. The next day we slept in late and woke up only at 10 am. The breakfast was over but we managed to get some leftovers even at 11 am after requesting the reception boy. After the breakfast, we were off to Suri Plaza.    Read more

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  • The Craze for TravellingThe South American Odyssey
    Day57

    Vicuñas near Cotacotani lake

    November 25, 2017 in Chile

    After we parked at the lookout we had been trying to reach from the Parinacota village end, we tried to climb a lava hill next to the lake for better views. The air was very rarefied and after climbing about halfway, we realized its the same view we had seen earlier plus we were getting late with a long distance still to go before sunset so we decided to go back and continue further.
    As we were driving back near the lake shore, we stopped to take a picture of the reflection of the Cotacotani volcano in the lake water. I walked back to that point along the shore while Hristo drove the vehicle along the track. A herd of vicuñas was trying to come towards the direction we were coming from and got trapped between the lava hills on one side with our vehicle just below and the lake with me standing near the shore. It was total panic chaos after that. Most of the herd ran past me while i prepared my cameras to take pictures and videos while one of them was too scared and started running towards the vehicle. Here, Hristo came out and started running after it 😄😄😄 Both kept running towards amd away from each other for about a minute before Hristo got totally out of breath due to the altitude and the vicuña decided that going around the lake was a safer option 😁😁😁
    Finally, it ran around the lake and the rest of the herd that had stopped and was looking back at the circus happening behind, too ran and joined it at the opposite end of the lake.    Read more

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  • The Craze for TravellingThe South American Odyssey
    Day57

    Chungará Lake

    November 25, 2017 in Chile

    Just 2-3 kms in the queue and we saw the Chungará lake. All the trucks in the queue were ahead of us so we were able to stop and take pictures. It was a typical, beautiful, high altitude altiplano lake.

    Chungará (hispanicized spelling of Aymara chunkara "pointed mountain") is a lake situated in the extreme north of Chile, in the Altiplano of Arica y Parinacota Region in the Lauca National Park. It is near the volcanos Parinacota (20,827 ft or 6,348 m) and Pomerape (20,413 ft or 6,222 m). It was formed 8000 years ago, when a major collapse of the edifice of Parinacota produced an avalanche of 6 km³ of debris which blocked drainage pattern, thus creating the lake.Read more

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  • The Craze for TravellingThe South American Odyssey
    Day57

    South to Salar de Surire

    November 25, 2017 in Chile

    Laguna Chungará is just 5 kms from the border of Bolivia. We managed to inch forward among the trucks and take the right exit to go South. We could see the queue of the trucks going all the way to Bolivia.
    We didn't have a booking for any place for that night amd there were major villages in this region. It was about 5 pm now, so we had about 3 hours of driving before it became too dark. The nearest town where we knew we could definitely find a place to stay was at Colchane, another border town about 200 kms away with the drive all the way through in the altiplano.
    We knew we would be quite late to reach there, so we decided to try staying at one of the Conaf (road and tourism authorities) place near Salar de Surire about 100 kms away. I had read about it in one of the blogs and we also found it on the Maps.me gps. This would be perfect for us since we had Salar Surire as our next destination in the itinerary, so basically, we could just get up the next morning and drive around the Surire salt plains.    Read more

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  • The Craze for TravellingThe South American Odyssey
    Day57

    Refueling time

    November 25, 2017 in Chile

    By the time we finished our meal and started again, it was 7 pm, we were still 60 kms from the Salar Surire. The fuel light turned on. We were running on the last 5 L of fuel now. We decided to stop and refuel from the tanks we were carrying. We had 40L in the tanks and we had done our calculations that this would be enough to get us back to one of the towns where there was a fuel station. So, we emptied one of the tanks into the vehicle and started on the way again. The fuel gauge now showed slightly more than half a tank of fuel.Read more

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  • The Craze for TravellingThe South American Odyssey
    Day57

    Salar de Surire

    November 25, 2017 in Chile

    The way continued South towards Salar Surire. There were some amazing rock formations with different colors on the way but we continued driving since it was getting dark. We reached the Salar de Surire around 8:30 pm. It was starting to get dark now. We decided to go to the Conaf place and try and find a place to stay. The alternate plan was to continue further and sleep at the Pollequere hot springs. I had read in one of the blogs that the writer had camped besides the hot springs and it had been an amazing experience.Read more

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  • The Craze for TravellingThe South American Odyssey
    Day58

    Salt extraction at Salar Surire

    November 26, 2017 in Chile

    The salar was exactly the same as that in Uyuni, just a smaller version of it. But, here, they were extremely busy extracting salt. While in Uyuni we had hardly seen any salt extraction, here there were more than 100 trucks running in and out of the factory and even in the salt plains. There was salt and dust in the air. There were big mounds of extracted salt near the factory.

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You might also know this place by the following names:

Provincia de Parinacota

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