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The road from Putre
to Bolivia passes through the Parque Nacional Lauca. The Southern portion
of this park is a national reserve for the vicuña. These graceful
camelids are a wild relative of the llama and alpaca. Their coats are a
golden color, and in Inca times their wool was reserved for Inca kings.
The ban on hunting of the vicuña has been extremely successful growing
from barely a thousand a few decades ago to tens of thousands today. Even
in the northern part of the park we were able to see large groups of them
grazing along with domestic livestock.
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This guy was as curious
about us as we were about him. Below, Karen cruises near the Parinacota
volcano. This part of the park is at 15,000 feet. The volcano is 20,840 feet.
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At this altitude we
also saw rheas grazing with llamas and alpacas. Below, Lake Chungara is
also host to abundant wildlife.
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