El Tatio Geysers, Chile

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If you want to see the world's highest geysers at their peak performance time, you have to first wake up at 3am. Dress warm, at least 3-4 layers, it's way below zero up there. Then, stand outside your hotel until the tour bus comes by to pick you up. Bump down the road for a couple of hours, as the bus climbs higher and higher. You will huff and puff more and more, trying to eek out every last gasp of oxygen left in the atmosphere.

Your little toesies will be so cold ON the bus, you don't know quite what to expect once getting off the bus. But never fear, once the sun comes up, it's the desert, and you'll be casting off layers of clothes faster than you can say Frosty the Snowman.

These geysers are not technically in the desert, as they are in the Andes Mountains. However, it is true that it is frost-biting cold before the sun, and then quite balmy once sunrise. In fact, there had been such a big snow storm up there, the road had been closed for over a week, and this day was the first it had been re-opened.

I was definately the odd one out on this bus tour. All Spanish speakers...and me. So the tour guide would say everything in Spanish, and then in English....for me. Whenever we were loading up the bus, he would just tell everybody else to get on the bus, but for me he would call out very loudly, "ANNETTE......." and I would peep back, "Si!!!!"

Again, more than words can describe, the pictures speak for themselves of the beauty.

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Photos

Heed the path.
A while back some nitwit went off on their own, fell in and was boiled alive.