Hernan Drives a Mercedes Benz Part 2

so writing down my journeys in a smooth chronology is not currently working. instead, i have bullet points from my notebook:

1. Street dogs are better behaved in Putre than in Arica
2. I went for a long walk around a lagoon near Parinacota and, straying slightly from the path, was told by some local birds to please retreat. I was pretty sure I was about to suffer a big pecking
3. What am I supposed to do if I come across a puma?
4. Today I got a little grumpy over paying 3,000 pesos for a bus. So did Marce. It´s $6, I should really put it in perspective. Aparently some gringo were recently charged 5 times that price for the same bus. Note: two of the most important words in Spanish when travelling are caro (expensive) and barato(cheap). mention a little bit of bastante caro (too expensive) and get haggling!
5. On our last evening in Putre, quite by chance we met a fascinating man named Rosamel - the first guy that I´ve met in Chile that I could definitely say was, most likely, probably, gay. In 1973 (the year of Pinochet´s coup) Rosamel´s father was killed by the junta for his leftist politics. Rosamel´s family, based in Marce´s hometown of Rancagua, were and are reasonably well known and Rosamel, sympathetic to his father´s cause, was sent (along with 70 other potentially leftist people) to the remote altiplano town of Putre. By our calculations he would have been between 16 and 20 years old. Pinochet did not always kill people, sometimes he just exiled them.
When the junta was over many years later, everyone of the 70 exiles in Putre returned to their hometowns, with the exception of Rosamel. He stayed and started Resaurant Rosamel (good consomme, excellent pollo and aroce), as well as becoming a local tour guide. We owe Rosamel a lot for his travel advice, and his recommendation of a town in Bolivia, near La Paz, called Coioco. Apparently very cheap and very few gringos.
6. If you see a puma, stare him in the eyes and don´t move. You basically have to put on your best staunch Dr Dre face and want for that big guy to back down (and, potentially, think you´re a tree).
7. After Putre we met a run of helpful local folk, all of them Aymara - Maximo, Alberta and Señora Francisca. Maximo sells llama and alpaca wool clothes and rugs in front of the CONAF (local forestry admin) on Lago Chungara. We were told you cannot travel to these places by ourselves, that we must use a tour company, but this is completely silly. You just catch a bus through the park, get off where you want and ask around for a place to stay. These altiplano pueblos are used to putting up spare backpackers and, as long as you speak some Spanish and are friendly and generous with your (attempted) conversation, it´s a great way to see the park.
Anyway, back to Maximo (who was, of course, very Minimo sized). He did beautiful work, learning the uniue weaving techniques of the Aymara off his mother-in-law. before his little table next to the CONAF, Maximo worked at the casino in the nearby bustling Arica. one day, on a trip into the altiplano (he is Aymara, but never lived in the altiplano) he met his wife-to-be and his whole life changed. He was going to show us his house and workshop but then agreed to give two lobster-coloured Belgians (who were there to climb the active volcano, about 6500+ metres, but had to cancel their plans fro ´health reasons´) a ride to Parinacota, which was also our destination for the night so we tagged along. It was on the last turn in Parinacota that the urge to spew arrived. Maximo charged the Belgians 4 times us much for the lift to Parinacota. Learn Spanish gringos! oh yeah, i saw some flamingos too.
8. I have a bright green alpaca hoodie. it has little alpacas on it.
9. I flagged down Hernan. we had walked the 4kms from Parinacota to Ruta 11 in an hour (at altitude, with packs, this feels like a lot longer), seeing some cool local fauna (it´s like a giant rabbit, mixed with a possum). when we got to Ruta 11 we thought it was probably better for Marce to attempt to flag down trucks or buses, seeing as I am clearly a gringo and she is clearly latin (though no Chileans think, at first, that she is Chilean). Marce attempted to wave down 4 trucks before she said I should have a go. No, I said, fearing rejection (ha). A large double-trailer big rig crested the hill and, experimentally, I stuck out my thumb and, miraculously, Hernan stopped! More on Hernan next time...
10. On our night in Parinacota, I got very paranoid because of mild dehydration. For about 3 agonising hours I hallucinated about giant bottles of cold water arriving at our door. Wide-smiling friends delivering them, half-strange half-recollected faces denying me as I imagined crawling from door to door, each of them lying to me that they had no water, each of them being cursed to their graves by my dry mouth. Finally at 2:40 am I ventured outside with my empty bottle for a tap. The tempurature drops dramatically in the altiplano, so I put on most of my clothes - polyprop underwear, jeans, alpaca hoodie, two pairs of socks, wind-proof jacket, wooly hat - and went out into the moonlit pueblo. Being paranoid, I thought I might be ravaged by one of the wolf-dogs I had seen earlier.
I found one tap that had seemingly just deposited a stream of water that ran all the way to the town square. It was now dry. Eventually I found the town bathroom (100 pesos per use please) and filled up my bottle from the tap. I went back to our room and boiled the water. 400mls of hot metalic water at 3:15am and I was all fine, paranoia gone.
The next morning Señora Francisca, whose house (not really a house, as you would imagine it) we were staying in said that the town water came from a local river and was co`mpletely clean. If she had told me that at 2:40am, I would have probably taken her for a spy sent by foreign agents... a very small, red-skinned spy in a lovely silk jacket embroidered with roses... but a spy nonetheless.
11. Most of the truckers on Ruta 11 drive Volvos. Hernan prefers his Mercedes-Benz.

next time - more on Arica, Peru and Ruta 11