Around Parinacota ....
The perception of landscape in the highlands has something strange: the remarkable transparency of the air voids in the distance effect, compresses the volume and suddenly puts the stars, planets and snowy peaks on a map almost identical. This illusion rather disturbing moreover have prompted more than a casual walker to venture outside the ancient tracks. Ah, that it would be easy to reach the foot of these hills sulfur, climb the piles of basalt, roosting atop these bluffs unusual shapes. ... But above all be exhausted or lost even before reaching the first uprisings! This bleached carcass that can be seen in the distance would not she the victim of a llama also the same aberration?
Surroundings, the plain fact is warming now vibrating silence.
The silence that probably should prevail on the eve of major eruptions. Here, the ultimate cataclysmic remain whole fields strewn with blocks of hardened lava. Projectiles cyclopean geometries unknown.
Most of these rocks is covered with a thick fleece and voluntary green. A little careful inspection could constitute that vegetation to a parasite or some lichen, yet it is a bush: the llareta. A woody plant growth habit very special. The scarcity of oxygen and long periods of drought because it imposes a system expansion rather than surface height.
order to avoid excessive water loss leaves also remain the most sensitive. The most striking character of this tree, as we must call it that, is its propensity to choose to support the most ungrateful of all: the stone. This persistence
to cover and embrace in every corner of the most imposing megaliths has in fact matched by the extreme slowness with which the llareta develops: a square centimeter per year!
is how, after several centuries of patience, " soft stones "are emerging. Curiously specialists liken this plant to a species rather commonplace in our latitudes: parsley. But some of the medicinal properties of these two plants would not they common? I learned from my grandmother that one should never abuse the parsley. The latter, used in excessive doses, had the property, she said, to thicken the blood ...
In the altiplano, since time immemorial, the natives use precisely the sap of llareta to apply to wounds and thus promote their healing. A plant whose flowers are also decoction used to treat asthma.
Finally, llareta is also traded in local communities. Indeed, this dense scrub consisting of a multitude of tiny trunks intertwined is a valuable supplementary fuels.
In the coming days, we also believe some strange caravans of llamas loaded and covered with shreds of llareta whole point of turning the famous real workhorses in bushes on legs.
As we watched this strange vegetation, the silence was disrupted several times by the sound of small landslide emerging from a slope of a nearby lagoon.
As could easily access the promontory by a sort of natural dam formed by thick layers of salt, we decided to approach a little more.
Just arrived at the foot of the mound, approached the activity increased. Furtive movements, jerky movements and nervous fauna worried by our unexpected intrusion.
Finally, a tuft of gray hair emerges, or rather, a pair of ears. After a moment, the animal ends up leaving unmasked. It was the size and gait of a rabbit and head could evoke a groundhog. Yet it was his tail that was most intriguing. It was long, thick, velvety and maintained in a spiral. It was the first time we saw what people here call the vizcacha. A variety of chinchilla
widespread in this country and this rocky island proved to be a real haven for many of them.
(based travel diary of November 91)
(Church of Parinacota)
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