Flamingos at Laguna Chaxa in the Salar de Atacama

Flamingos are wading birds and I had the opportunity to see different kinds in the Andes. The word flamingo comes from the Spanish flamengo, flame-colored, but you might think of flamenco as a mnemonic.

At Laguna Chaxa in the Salar de Atacama one can watch different species, like the Chilean flamingo (Phoenicopterus chilensis), James's flamingo
(Phoenicoparrus jamesi) [?] and Andean flamingo (Phoenicoparrus andinus), but I’m not an ornithologist and won’t try to differentiate. Flamingo feed on small brine shrimp and or algae much like baleen whales filter krill. It’s strange that baleen whales aren’t pink like flamingos as the color of the plumage is pink because of beta-carotenes and krill is rich in astaxanthin, a beta-carotene that colors at least salmon.

Laguna Chaxa in the Salar de Atacama is at 2300 m altitude and I’ll show only pictures I’ve taken there in this blogpost.

 

Lots of salt

 

Different colors due to different age and content of betacarotenes in the food

 

The flamingo pose

 

In flight

 

Links:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flamingo

https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nationalreservat_Los_Flamencos

Festival of San Lucas (St. Luke) at Toconao

I had the good luck of being in Toconao at the time of the festival of the village saint San Lucas (St. Luke, the physician and writer of the 3^rd gospel as well as the book Acts of the Apostles). 

Toconao is a village at 2,485 m (8,153 ft) in Chile, south of San Pedro de Atacama. The region is a desert, but Toconao is an oasis because of a stream of pure water. In 2006 the village had less than 800 inhabitants. “The most notable building in Toconao is its church [Iglesia de San Lucas]. The bell tower is separated from the main church structure and dates from 1750.” Says Wikipedia. And the festival of the patron of the village is in October (18.10.).

The dancers hardly get a break. And one of the bands already look like having played in the movie “They shoot horses, don’t they”. It’s more than what we see at carnival in Cologne. You need stamina. In between dancing to praise San Lucas, the dancers enter church and pray there. The nuns there pray, too, and talk about the saint. The village doesn’t have a steady priest, but of course someone is visiting the village regularly as only a priest can consecrate the host, which is kept afterwards in the tabernacle. 

You might get the impression when looking at dancing to praise a saint as a thin roman-catholic layer on folk believes in South America, but you will find worldwide some non-Christian folk religion having entered Christianity. Or do you think that the Christmas tree has a Christian origin?

You might think that the people look rather Bolivian, which isn’t so far from the truth. The region had been a part of Bolivia until Chile won the War of the Pacific in 1884 and the area has been part of Chile since then or better after signing the peace treaty in 1904, or even as late as 1929. But that's better discussed on a history blog. Bolivia still claims access to the Pacific Ocean.

The Stream that nurtures Toconao

 

 

Ball Tower and Church in the background

 

 

Dancers - the biggest group

 

 

Sultans of Brass

 

 

The colored squares on the dresses resemble the new flag of Bolivia

 

 

Dancing is fun, too

 

 

Not as unusual as you might think ...

 

... have a look at this announcement in La Paz (Bolivia) for a folklore ballet staged by the catholic university of San Pablo

 

Links:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toconao

https://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toconao

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