Thermal baths in Chile!

What was probably our final jaunt in the van was to some thermal baths (of course!) 160km from Arica, near the little town of Putre.  They're at 4,000m so the scenery en route was pretty good.

Although when we arrived, we both passed out for about an hour because of the altitude.  When we finally made it to the baths, we were on our own in the whole complex for most of the time, until a young family arrived about half an hour before we left.  The baths included a few small mud baths, although not as good as the thick mud baths we went to near Máncora.

There were a couple of small indoor baths with clear water and then one big, very warm, open air pool.

We camped that night near the complex, as it was probably our last opportunity to camp somewhere remote and completely dark and quiet.  We tried to watch the sunset from the roof of the van but it was so cold!!  So we made do with taking some quick pictures before retreating inside.

Paul prepared our last cooked meal in the van: scrambled eggs with salami on toasted oat and quinoa bread.

I had been hoping for a peaceful night's sleep but forgot how the altitude affects you.  I kept waking up to catch my breath, while Paul had a headache after just a couple of small cans of beer.  And the next morning, we had a bit of a scare when the van had trouble starting because of the altitude.  With some perseverance, Paul managed to get it going, but then it felt as though the brakes had gone again. Then, when Paul went to open his door, the handle broke!  It was like the van was collapsing around us.  But thankfully there was nothing wrong with the brakes and the door handle was fixable.

Once back on the road, we headed to Putre, a tiny, quiet, Aymaran village, with the obligatory main square.

There was hardly anyone around, but there was a little Artesan shop where we did some last minute souvenir shopping and then had a delicious 3-course set lunch for about £4 each.

(Soup, fish with salad, and semolina (not pictured))

After that we headed back to Arica stopping en route for maybe our most exotic Geocache yet.  Paul had picked up a Travel Bug somewhere in the UK and had been holding on to it for ages, so it was time to drop it off.  The cache we looked for was maybe 60km from Arica, but 150m off the Pan American Highway.

Unfortunately, the pen in the cache wasn't working and we'd stupidly forgot to bring one of our own.  It was such a trek down to the cactus that neither of us could be bothered to trek back to the van just for a pen.  But the cache had only been found a handful of times in the last few years so we couldn't leave without signing it!  So Paul made use of what was nearby - cactus spikes:

If this is your cache, we are sorry for messing up your logbook!  And if it was your Travel Bug Paul had, we're sorry it might not get picked up for a while!