Of monkeys, Chilean crows and other randoms

A quick one before hitting the road, again, leaving Arica behind us this morning to reach Putre at the entrance of the Chilean altiplano, Andes and Lauca National Park where we´re going to spend the next week or so in my favorite kind of playground.



Hanging on the pacific coast has been pretty cool, although under the light of some major hallucinations on Armelle´s part, since she got severly ill for 48 hours and was a bit delirious at times... She saw monkeys in trees where there were birds, crows where there were local vultures, went to grab the waiter´s ass at a restaurant to get his attention... Needless to say, we´ve been laughing a lot.



Pisagua was very interesting to say the least, ghost town kind of feel but very much alive in its own way, out of time, but definitely in place, its history is rather violent, what´s left from it is sad, but it has its interest... the torture and mass murder that took place under Pinochet is still in the walls it seems, everything is now falling apart but people remember and one can sort of feel it in the air... The town looks like it´s about to be abandoned... maybe it is, it is hard to tell.



Arica is mellow, nothing special exept for a giant Jesus up on the hill dominating the whole city and a ounce gorgeous valley at the entrance of town where they grow olive trees (although the desert is constantly threatening to take over at any moment from the hills surrounding)...



My Spanish is improving slowly but steadily, i still am a non smoker, the sun is shining every day, it´s sweet and warm down here, loving it all, even if i thought there would be more indigenous groups and villages for some reason... Hoping it will be the case on the altiplano, but regardless, people are lovely.



Very eager to be up in the mountains now i must say, it´s all supposed to be made of gorgeous (sometimes dangerous) land, small Aymara villages, a few travelers, a bunch of vicunas, suris, lamas, alpacas, and maybe some monkeys if we´re lucky and "look" hard enough :) Gonna be hiking every day, waking with the sun, and hanging with the stars.



Hope everyone is doing great and having a sweet December. Thinking of y´all. Cheers.