Arriving at the Chituca Lodge

18 October 2024, from the itinerary: Drive 95.6 miles to the Chituca Lodge. We will stop at 3 lagoons, one of which will bring us very close to the flamingos. During our drive we will have to cross a drug check twice - a type of border crossing. We also will cross Antofagasta–Uyuni section of the railroad built in the 1800s for mining. This section was closed in the late 1900s. We will have a short hike of about 2 miles to lunch. This walk is along a valley used by shepherds in season to feed their llama flocks and is home to a large variety of high altitude biodiversity. Amongst other animals, we have a chance to see local woodpeckers. The Chituca Lodge is nestled against walled fields and among old farm houses.

Weather for the week is good:

At breakfast we met a gentleman from Explora home office who is touring all the properties.  He and Arturo ate with us.  Arturo set up all of the Bolivian properties for Explora. He is married and lives in Santa Cruz, Bolivia. He's been working with Explora for 6 years and a lovely man.  They will be following us and we will probably meet again in 2 days time at which point I arranged to give private feedback on my experience at Atacama to the guy from the home office….

I got two small vegetable omelettes for breakfast which was a mistake since I ordered one small cheese omelet.  Since I don’t waste food I ended up eating both of them and not much the rest of the day.

Our first truck was at Laguna Honda (Honda means "deep"), where we saw several flamingos and something resembling a food truck.

There was a sign nearby which was used before the area really was opened to tourists and was one of the initial directional signs for people visiting, other than miners.

Our second stop was at "smelly lake" where we had an opportunity to see the flamingos very close up.

The stop included a bathroom at a hotel at the lake edge. There were very specific instructions for toilet use....

we were also able to see the flamingo's favorite food close up

In each of the lakes we visited were borax deposits that looked like islands and these were used by the flamingos for their nests

We had a few border crossings

and had various registration procedures before crossing a ridge where we had another bathroom stop and an opportunity to try llama sausages which were very tasty.

and then on to see another volcano emitting some steam

Our final lagoon before hiking was the Cañapa Lagoon where we saw "the monkey mountain"

Before getting to our trailhead to begin our hike. Our hike was about 2 miles and was consistently at about 14,000 feet. We started along a valley which was a popular place to graze llama. Much of the valley was very marshy and we saw interesting plants like this spoon algea, azola fuliculoides anabena, and pututunku. Pututunku was used by the farmers and ground into flour. It had a naturally sweet taste and was used to make sweet cakes.

and birds, like ibis and geese

There were several shepherd's lean-tos and houses.

and we actually saw a shepherd in traditional dress

before ending the hike by skirting the Turquin Lagoon. This lagoon was near borax and lithium mining in the area.

The lagoon had Andean duck and Giant Coot

We also saw Ruddy ducks which was very unusual this early in the season and indicated a very warm summer to come.

We had a final push up to a ridge above the lake for lunch at the top of the rocks. Lunch included local marinated trout, salad, soup and carrot cake. The venue was beautiful until the wind came up.  

The wind came up so suddenly and strong that it blew all the chairs over and I was holding on to them for dear life until someone came to relieve me of them. Unfortunately no photos of this funny situation. Also, we didn’t find any woodpeckers. We were surprised to hear that there would even be any since we were above the tree line and there were no trees for them....

After lunch we continued to drive towards the hotel. Llamas crossed the road and there were more dust devils....

As we got closer we finally saw the closed railway line. This line seemed to come from nowhere and go to nowhere, used by the now closed mines.

The environment changed to tall cactus, coral formations and Quinoa fields.  The coral formations were left over from old seas which covered the area. I couldn't get a good shot today, but future blogs will show it was all over the place.

Finally, we arrived in the Chituco lodge which is haunted! It is nestled in an area that looks like an old farm and is a carbon copy of our last lodge, only the color is different and our bed is facing a different direction.

Strange occurrences have been noted by several workers and guests, including me! While waiting for dinner I was in the central lodge area. I noticed the central door was open and got up to close it. I continued working on this blog and realized one of the local girls walked over to the central door about 20 minutes later and closed the door again - it had opened by itself. No one thought twice about it until 20 minutes later when the door slammed all by itself....I had witnesses. This hotel was built about 100 feet from a group of graves - one guest saw one of the dead people while stargazing on an earlier trip.

There are two photographers, Philip and Bruno, here with us for both nights. They will be staying for 10 days and were working on a documentary about the dying art of vicuña care and wool harvesting. This documentary was partially funded by Explora.

Dinner was at 8pm.  Since they pushed back our requested dinner from 7:30 they were kind enough to offer us appetizers earl to hold us over.  The best ones were the roasted fava beans (broad beans), but they also offered banana chips, olives and ham and cheese.

Dinner was quinoa soup, fava beans, peas and chard

Trout, sweet potatoes, tomato salad, roasted cabbage, white chocolate soup with chia seed. 

I ended the meal with pupusa tea. This is made from a local plant and is known as an anti inflammatory and as being good for elevation issues. I wish this was available for export.

My boot finally had it, but they have to last another week, at least.

Another amazing moonrise as the moon was still close to being full.