When I first saw the brochure, I knew that this was one
optional excursion that was a 'must'. The Tatio Geysers are at a heady
15,000 feet above sea level. The bad news is that they are at their best
just after dawn: about 6.45 am when the local temperature is -10C. The worse
news is that this requires a two hour journey in a mini bus on the road from
Hell! Sat back in the warmth of my own home, I can now say: It was worth it!
This is the sky of the southern hemisphere taken at 4am.
Camera on the ground, 30 sec exposure.
Eventually, we arrive at our celestial destination. At
first, we all wonder whether it is worth it to see a few steamy fumeroles.
Well, quite a few; 200 ish.
This surreal piece of machinery was built
here in an attempt to harvest some of the heat from the Andean 'free' heat
source. It failed.
The sun peeks over the mountain tops and a
little bit of geyser drama begins. the vehicles and people in the foreground
give you an idea of scale.
The show begins!
The sun is sooo bright and fortunately begins to warm us
up.
There's more than one keen
photographer here...
You can even swim here in this steam heated
pool if you so wish.
I didn't.
There are warnings for the over adventurous; at least one
tourist has died by falling into the near boiling water.
The sun got higher, we got warmer and the geysers went
back to sleep.
The journey down was much more enjoyable
than the one up for several reasons: we could enjoy the fantastic scenery
and we weren't trying to sleep.
Scenes that were straight out of National geographic.
This pretty little church was in a village that does not
appear on any map.
Volcano and flowering cactus.
Sadly, only one more night in San Pedro de
Atacama.
Tomorrow we return to Santiago for our last night in
South America.
we have visited the highest geysers in the world, the
most southernmost city, seen more volcanoes, glaciers and icebergs than
David Attenborough. (well, not quite) It only remains to finish our trip
whence it started: Santiago. It just so happened that Presidents Bush and
Putin were also in Chile's capital city that day...
