Arica y Parinacota, Tarapacá and Antofagasta regions, Chile

Thermal sources where nobody’s there. Salt basins with dazzling spectrum. Pure and revealing starry sky. Sometimes fuming volcanoes. Llamas, vicugnas, alpacas, viscachas, flamingos, rhea birds. Abandoned or little populated ghost towns. Scattered mountains limiting the infinite view of treeless Altiplano. Sandy roads, other perfectly paved, and everything in between. Generosity from the few people met.

It’s the Ruta Andina, a Chilean road following the Bolivian border, which was my welcoming challenge in the fourteenth country of this route. Ten days of relative solitude, where it’s needed to bring enough food and make enough water reserves when it’s possible. There were only in Colchane and Ollagüe (see the map at the end of the blogpost) where you can find basic food products, considering that the shop is open. In Colchane, I had to go to the hotel with a restaurant to negotiate bread and tuna cans. Continue reading →