Parinacota village

Our initial plan was to park at Parinacota village and then trek to the Cotacotani lake viewpoint. We were at a pretty high altitude now and climbing just a few steps to the viewpoint made us breathless. At the viewpoint, we realized that the distance to the lookout was about 4.5 kms. This would take us about 2.5 hrs to go and come back in the searing heat of the high altitude sun and with no trees or any shade anywhere. We came down into the village to ask around if we could take our 4x4 vehicle all the way. As usual in Bolivia, Peru and now in Chile, the tourist office was closed. We've not even once found any of them open at any hour in any of the 3 countries we have visited till now.
The office was closed. The staff was sitting in a jeep outside but made no effort to indicate that they worked there. We actually thought they were some local tourists. We walked to the lake at the end of the village and it was only when we were returning we saw one of them go into the office. We managed to get a few seconds with him but we were told that the office was closed and that we could take our vehicle to the lookout point.
We started the drive and had to use the 4x4 at a few places. At one point our gravel track ended and there were small sand hills formed by another gravel track running perpendicular to our road. There was a board indicating entry for authorized persons only. We had no where else to turn to so we drove on over these sand hills onto the other track and started driving in one of the directions which we felt was almost towards the direction we wanted to go to. After driving for a few seconds, we realized we were going perpendicular and away from our marked track on the map. There was no one else on this road and we ended up 2 kms away from the village with another board indicating that we had been in a forbidden zome again. (As with every trip of ours this has to happen 😉).
We drove back to the village, now on the legal road amd decided to continue further on the main road to the roadside viewpoint of the same lake.Read more