One last day in Chile

As it turns out, today was my last full day in Chile.

I've said it before and I'll say it again: it's really hard to plan a trip like this. 3 days ago, I was leaving Santiago with a plan to hit Valparaiso, La Serena, and then Arica. I would spend 2 days in Arica to go onto Lauca National Park, and then would cross back into Bolivia on Friday.

I researched buses for about 3 hours last Saturday and another hour on Sunday to make sure my plan would work. Monday morning, Tomas and I went to the bus station to buy the first 2 tickets only to be told that the second bus ride would have to wait until the following day because of scheduling. On the spot, I decided to ditch all plans and just go straight to Arica on that 30 hour bus ride I already blogged about. I wasn't that bummed out because, truth be told, I'm not a huge fan of traveling completely alone, but I could deal with a few days solo.

When I got here in Arica yesterday, I inquired about the trip to Lauca National Park. The owner of the hostel, Ross, suggested I only do a day trip because the 2 day trip is way more expensive and it doesn't offer that much more. So, I agreed and he went off the make the reservation for me. 10 minutes later, he entered my room and asked if I was ready for the bad news.

"Today, there was a car accident on the road into the park and someone has died. So tomorrow it will be closed and there will be no tours."

Obviously I felt terrible that there had been an accident and someone's life had been lost... but I was also frustrated that my plans, yet again, were messed up. I planned on waiting it out today and going tomorrow, but this evening, I asked Ross which bus company I should take to get back into La Paz and he said this:

"Oh, you're going to La Paz? You don't need to do the park tour then. Your bus will have to go through the park to the border crossing anyway. If you sit on the drivers side, you'll see all of the same stuff."

So, here we are. I just bought my ticket for La Paz leaving tomorrow instead of the following day, which means I'll have an extra day to reacclimatize to the altitude. Hopefully I'll have a few opportunities to jump off the bus tomorrow and take some lovely pics to join those that I took today in Arica!