San Pedro de Atacama is a little oasis town in the Atacama desert, and a good base from which to discover the surrounding area. One of the trips we made was to El Tatio.
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| Crossing the Andes |
El Tatio it is a geyser field, and its name means the grandfather. El Tatio is 4320 meters above sea level and has over 80 active geysers. This makes El Tatio the second highest (in elevation) geyser fields in the world and the largest geyser field in the southern hemisphere.
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| El Tatio right before sunrise |
We were told that El Tatios is at its best at sunrise, which ment leaving San Pedro at 4am... oh my! And, being at both high altitide and in the desert, it was COLD! So there we were, waiting in the middle of the night (4am is not morning!), in as many layers of clothing we could fit, in the dark, for our minivan. That came about 45 min later :(
We were packed in the minivan with a few other tourist, and drove off to El Tatio. Some 90 minutes later, over mostly gravel roads, we arrived, about 15 minutes before sunrise. The temperature at that point was about minus 10'C. The area looked like a misty moon landscape.
Various little ice pools were encircled by stones.
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| Sunrise |
And then the sun rose.....
Some of the pools started bubbling, and the ice broke. Misty fumes rose all suround us. It was like magic.
As with most touristy places with natural hot water, our guides sed the thermal heat to cook us breakfast. Hot chocolate and hard boiled eggs. Or half raw eggs if you use the wrong puddle ;-)
As the sun rose we could warm ourselfs in the thermal pools.
I decided to just warm my feet though: the air temperature still was only around 10'C, not really my favourite temp to get undressed in!
So, as you might''ve guessed: it was a bit to chilly for me, but on the whole it was really worth it!
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| Even the birds looked cold |
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