Arica

Well, I kind of screwed up the timing of this one. I took the night bus from Calama to Arica, and from there I'd hoped to get a bus to Putre, at the entrance of Lauca National Park. Unfortunately, there's only one public bus to Putre each day, and it left Arica at the same time I was arriving, from the opposite side of town.

Anyway, that means that instead of exploring Lauca on my own, I'll be doing another day tour tomorrow, which is apparently the only real way to see anything in northern Chile without renting cars constantly. It also means I spent today in Arica, which wasn't exactly what I'd been hoping for:

I spent most of the day wandering around town, slathering on sunscreen, eating ice cream, and hiding from the sun in museums.

The in situ museum features mummies and artifacts in their original locations, with a glass-floored museum built up around it:

The whole visit felt like the first act of a horror movie.