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Published: November 16th 2010
El Tatio during sunrise
Nose was running uncontrollably, but it got cleaned up for the photoSan Pedro de Atacama
El Tatio Oozed out of bed at 330am yesterday morning, rugged up with all of the warm clothing that i'd brought with me, and headed out the front of the hostel to wait for the van that was supposed to take me to the El Tatio geyser field. It arrived about half an hour late, by which time my face had pretty much lost all feeling from the cold (apparently deserts are REALLY cold at night), and we set of on the 90min trip to the geyser field. As it turned out, our driver hadn't actually driven a tour van before, which led to the trip taking about two and a half hours. EL Tatio is at the top of a volcano of elevation around 4000m, and so most of the trip was uphill, which is where the problems arose. El Driverman attacked every hill in high gear, eventually stalled, and then couldn't hillstart. After about four of five attempts where we slid further and further backward down the hill and a strange routine involving switching the car off, starting moving with the headlights off, and then quickly turning them back on again... and stalling again,
we all got out and walked up the hill while he continued to struggle with getting moving. This happened about six of seven times. Our guide was pretty apologetic about the whole thing, and it was mostly just funny.
We arrived at El Tatio just as the sun was coming up, and it was a damn magnificant sight. Massive plumes of steam blasting up out of the rock, and boiling water spraying everywhere. What made it even more eerie was the fact that it was -12 degrees outside as the sun was coming up (one of the other tourists had brought some fancy navigation thing with a thermometer), and so the gound was covered with ice that was cracking and sizzling as it got melted by the sun and rivers of boiling water. Took some pretty fantastic photos before my fingers stopped working.
Once the sun was up, and the air warmed to a toasty minus five, we stopped for breakfast and then headed for some hot springs where myself and a couple of crazy old german men stripped off superman in a
One of the larger geysers
You could walk right through them, too. Except for the ones spitting boiling water everywhere. phonebooth-style and went for a swim while everyone else stood about shivering in beanies and gloves. Getting out and drying off was UNPLEASANT. I'd planned to take photos, but ended up just getting clothes on as quickly as i could.
The rest of the tour was mostly uneventful sightseeing and talking about cactuses and llamas. We visited a pretty little local village and ate overpriced llama on a stick and then after walking up a hill and looking down on the village the solar panels on the roofs of all the houses took away from it's credibility a bit. Went home and had a nap, booked my tour to Bolivia that leaves on saturday and bought a fancy pizza for dinner.
El Tonto Today was a much less productive day. I'd really wanted to go on a tour they run from my hostel where you go sandboarding in the afternoon and then go to watch the sun go down over Valle de la Luna. I had a fair amount of cash on me in USD and Chilean Pesos, but needed all of it
The hot springs
Note the people all layered up in the background for the tour to Bolivia, which takes three days and there are no banks in the salt desert. Unfortunately, all four of the ATMs in San Pedro had simultaneously broken down right when i needed them, and so i spent the day sitting around doing nothing and feeling sorry for myself until someone came to fix one of the ATMs at about quarter past four (15mins after the tour i wanted to go on had left) and i could at least get money out to eat and go use a computer. Moral of the story is i need to carry way more emergency USD. Pretty unluckey, but should have been avoidable. Day wasted. Drowned my sorrows in a gigantic burger with about a half litre of condiments and a beer.
Anyway, i leave tomorrow morning for Bolivia and will be out of touch for three or four days whist we jeep it across the salt flats. Really excited about it, as i've heard great things. Apparently it is forbidden to eat red meat, drink milk, or drink alcohol the night before you leave... the alcohol i understand, but does anyone get the
Walking up a hill
Due to aforementioned driver problems meat and milk thing? I assume it is altitude-related?
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