A-C-B: Laguna Chaxa

The first half of October 27th was spent visiting the Laguna Chaxa, or, Chaxa lagoon, about an hour south of San Pedro de Atacama. This spot is part of the vast Salar de Atacama, the largest salt flat in Chile.

As we parked this German "rolling hotel" caught our eye.

The main walkway led out to the lagoons in the salt flat.

A sign (encountered later on a side trail) about the lagoons.

This area hosts both the most and least common flamingos living only in South America, the Chilean flamingo and the rare Andean flamingo, listed as Vulnerable. However we saw plenty of Andeans today.

The Chilean flamingo is distinguished by pink "knees" and the lack of a black triangle at the back.

The Andean has yellow legs and the distinguishing black patch.

The flamingos feed by scooping through the water and mud for salt-tolerant critters such as brine shrimp.

Smaller birds will hang around to grab a tidbit stirred up by the flamingos.

Feasting at the snack bar.

When the flamingos are done, the lagoon bed is full of tracks.

Other birds have their own ecological niche here, such as the Baird's sandpiper.

Youngster!

I love the black headband on the Puna plover.

The Andean avocet is a larger bird, but the only ones we saw today were snoozing.

Not all the inhabitants here were birds.

I haven't tried to identify the species!

This view looks back at the parking, other buildings,

and the volcanoes in the background.

I don't know if it was the heat or the salt, but my camera developed the habit this day of taking pictures on its own if left on; I had to delete quite a few. Fortunately this didn't persist through our journey.

After our long wander we had lunch in the shade, back at the buildings. Carlos, our guide, had brought sandwiches along from the hotel, and they were good. A portly guide from another group was sitting at the next table. He was very jolly, telling us about his family and the success so far of his plan to lose weight.

Then an scheduling issue arose. The detailed itinerary that Trogon Tours had sent Joan and me, the better part of nine pages long, had led off today's description with "two spectacular high Andean lagoons: Miñique and Miscanti, turquoise-green lagoons some 4,300 meters above sea level." Joan asked about these, and Carlos seemed surprised. He said that if we went there, we wouldn't get back to San Pedro until after dark. Our thought was, why hadn't we gone there directly and skipped Chaxa?

The root of the problem was that Carlos was filling in for the guide originally assigned to our trip, who had injured his back. We had the detailed nine-page itinerary, but Trogon had not given him a copy. He was operating with the bare outline (hotels, etc.) that Trogon had given him, and had no inkling that we'd been promised either Miñique and Miscanti by the back office.

Joan explained that she had been particularly interested in these lagoons, but we understood that Carlos hadn't been given sufficient information, which wasn't his fault. Carlos told us the three days in Bolivia would have multiple high lagoons in addition to the huge Uyuni salt flat, so we shouldn't miss anything, and Joan and I decided that was OK.

Carlos had an idea for what we might do instead. After lunch we drove back to the outskirts of San Pedro where he inquired about the best time for the Valle de la Luna (Valley of the Moon). This wasn't listed our itinerary, but it is one of the major tourist sites of the area.

The answer was to begin later in the afternoon, in order to finish our visit with the sunset. We returned to the hotel, where Joan and I had time to re-hydrate and for our afternoon meditation (not a given on this trip), and then back to the valley we three went.

That visit will form the next blog entry.