Qualla: Putre

Putre: Introduction

Mon, 23 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Alejandra Edwards, CC BY-SA 3.0. The church was supposedly covered in gold and silver before the earthquake brought it down. That was the old one. The replacement, the Iglesia de San Ildefonso, was built in 1670 and still stands in the village of Putre -- its 33-meter adobe nave anchored by a stone facade restored in 1871 and a bell tower of unknown but obviously greater age. This is a place where buildings outlast the records that might explain them, where seventeenth-century carved stone portals are salvaged and reused in nineteenth-century walls because material is scarce and craftsmanship endures.

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Image: Alejandra Edwards | CC BY-SA 3.0

Putre: Gateway at 3,500 Meters

Mon, 23 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Till Niermann, CC BY-SA 3.0. Putre sits at 3,500 meters in Chile's Arica y Parinacota region, backdropped by the Taapaca volcanic complex and positioned 130 kilometers east of the coastal city of Arica. The altitude is the point. Most visitors come here not for Putre itself but because their bodies need time...

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Image: Till Niermann | CC BY-SA 3.0

Putre: Stone Portals and Terraced Ravines

Mon, 23 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Gonzalo Ibáñez, CC BY 2.0. Putre's oldest street, named for Chilean independence hero Bernardo O'Higgins, runs through town with a ditch -- an acequia -- down its center, crossed by bridges made of stone benches. Many houses preserve carved stone portals and window sills from the seventeenth century, a per...

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Image: Gonzalo Ibáñez | CC BY 2.0

Putre: The Road to the Altiplano

Mon, 23 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Heretiq, CC BY-SA 2.5. Highway 11 connects Arica to Bolivia through some of the most dramatically vertical terrain on the continent. In theory, the drive from Arica to Putre takes two and a half hours. In practice, roadwork delays are common and the route can close for entire afternoons. There are no g...

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Image: Heretiq | CC BY-SA 2.5

Putre: Festivals, Flamingos, and Minefields

Mon, 23 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Gerd Breitenbach, CC BY-SA 3.0. Putre's calendar is punctuated by festivals tied to the Iglesia de San Ildefonso: Carnival in February, the Virgen de la Asunta on August 15, Cristo Rey on the last Sunday of October, and the Pachayampe potato festival in the first week of November. Outside town, the Termas de Ju...

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Image: Gerd Breitenbach | CC BY-SA 3.0