Chile Guide
El Norte Grande
Parque Nacional Volcán Isluga
Lying in the heart of the altiplano, PARQUE NACIONAL VOLCÁN ISLUGA is named after the towering, snow-capped volcano whose 5500-metre peak dominates the park's landscape. Its administrative centre is in Enquelga, a dusty, tumbledown hamlet – 3850m above sea level – home to a small Aymara community. Many of its inhabitants, particularly the women, still dress in traditional, brightly coloured clothes, and live from tending llamas and cultivating potatoes and barley. There's a Conaf refugio in the village, with accommodation for five people (CH$5500 per person); it's supposed to be open year-round, but sometimes isn't. Two kilometres on from Enquelga, Aguas Calientes is a long, spring-fed pool containing warm (but not hot) waters, set in an idyllic location with terrific views of the volcano. The pool is surrounded by pea-green bofedal – a spongy grass, typical of the altiplano – and drains into a little stream, crossed every morning and evening by herds of llamas driven to and from the sierra by Aymara shepherdesses. There's a stone changing-hut next to it, and a few camping spaces and picnic areas, protected from the evening wind by thick stone walls.
Six kilometres east of Enquelga, still within the park's boundaries, Isluga is composed of a hundred or so stone and adobe houses huddled around one of the most beautiful churches of the altiplano. Built some time in the seventeenth century (it's not known when, exactly), it's a humble little church made of thick, whitewashed adobe that flashes like snow in the constant glare of the sun. The main building, containing a single nave, is enclosed by a low wall trimmed with delicate arches; just outside the wall sits the two-tier bell tower with steps leading up to the top, where you can sit and survey the scenery or watch the hummingbirds that fly in and out. The church, along with the entire village, remains locked up and abandoned for most of the year – Isluga is a "ceremonial village", whose inhabitants come back only for festivals, important religious ceremonies and funerals; the principal fiestas are held February 2 and 3, March 10, Easter week, and December 8, 12 and 21 through 25.