When Is the Best Time
The Parque Nacional Eduardo Alvaroa is fascinating throughout the year. The winter from June to August is dry and freezing due to the location 4.750 m/15.584 feet above sea level. The summer from December to February is pleasant with a little rain. Day temperatures in summer range from roughly 14-20°C/57-68°F.
You can visit this national park at any time of the year. But it can be amazing cold and wet sometimes. We visited it at the end of October and had wonderful weather. Since you are unprotected in an open landscape, it can be very windy and cold. We had sun and wind, it was a good period in our opinion
Best Months to Visit
Location and Tips
If you like nature and an unexpected landscape, this might be the place for you. It is filled with volcanoes. Some of them have a light activity as you can see, some smoke escape from the summits. The area is also filled with lakes in all kind of colours, some of them look surreal because of the weird colours orange and bright green. This has something to do with the presence of the algae, and the wind that is blowing around the water. All the lakes are filled with hundreds, no thousands of flamingo's. We had never seen this amount of flamingos before. There are 3 types of flamingos you can find here, the James flamingo, the Andean flamingo and the Chilean flamingo. We also saw the Andean fox, and a kind of rabbit-like mammal called the viscacha.
Many smaller birds and of course lamas and vicunas. It is such a spectacular area! You just cannot believe that you are IN this landscape yourself. We also visited the stone tree (Arbol de Piedra), a rock that is formed like a tree by the erosion of the wind. In the end, there is the Sol de Manana geyser. This area is quite interesting too! The earth is alive; you can notice it here. Steam coming out holes in the earth, mud that is bubbling, hot water lakes, it is boiling, and they have several colours. In the end, we went to our very simple accommodation—a dorm bed for each one of us, in a concrete building. The advantage of being here was that we could use the nearby hot springs at sunset. We were in the hot springs for some hours, just our small group and some locals. Imagine the next day there were at least 30 minibuses to get in these springs as well..... The sky was amazingly clear; we could do some stargazing from the hot springs. Just incredible. We will never forget this trip. Another perfect day we spend in this region.
This place was created by my travel friend Lianne
