A-C-B: El Tatio Geysers

Our alarm rang at 3:30. Joan and I hit the breakfast table at 4:30, along with everyone from the hotel headed for the El Tatio geysers. The Terrantai makes a point that "geyser breakfasts" are available; the goal is to reach the geysers while the day is still young "for best effect," although I don't really know what means. Admission is free in the afternoon!

Vans and small buses idled outside in the dark, lined up and down the street waiting for their clients to board. Carlos drove us out of San Pedro ahead of them, and all went well at first on paved roads. The sky was deep black.

The surface went from paved to unpaved, then from unpaved to awful. Graders supposedly smooth it out, as seen in this Google Street View,

but I bet only once a year at most. Once the incessant washboards get bad, drivers seek out a parallel cross-country path which itself soon becomes washboards. As daylight broke we could see braiding routes winding back and forth.

Carlos' Toyota sedan vibrated many times like it might fall apart. We slowed and turned on and off the main road, trying to find the least teeth-jarring surface. The big-tire trucks and the commercial traffic caught up and blitzed past us. They must have been equipped with heavy-duty shocks and springs.

Joan and I were worried for the integrity of Carlos' car, and I'm sure he was too. He gripped the steering wheel tightly and slowed the car to a walking pace when necessary to avoid bottoming out. We did scrape the gravel once or twice, but the Toyota made it.

The geyser field is around the next few bends in this photo.

Shot through the windshield.

We stopped to pay our fees and look at the signage,

then headed for the geyser parking area, after turning in the tickets we just bought just a few yards away.

There's plenty of steam in the third-largest geothermal field in the world. (Technically, much of what we saw here were fumaroles rather than geysers.)

Shade, sunlight, steam, and the moon. (Click on the image to enlarge.)

Backlighting!

Shadows!

And some were very tall.

Life has found a way to survive even in the hot outflow from the geysers.

I didn't stick my finger in.

At 4300 meters, or 14,000 ft., with a clear sky,

the morning air was bitterly cold. However, the braver souls bathed in a hot pool, changing rooms provided. Water boils at only 185º F/85º C up here, but I'd still be careful! 

Beyond the field of great plumes were varied cracks and mounds, some active and some extinct.

A video of bubbling, splashing, and burping.


In the distance sat the ruin of a failed geothermal energy experiment.

On the first leg of the return I took some road images from within our car.

Rush hour in the high desert.

Don't like the road? Make another!

This road may never be paved; otherwise, tourists could drive their own cars and the tour operators and drivers might go out of business. We'll also see this imperative at work in Bolivia.

Several buses paused at a lagoon with waterfowl.

We stopped too, before the sharp bend.

A posing Andean Goose.

A Giant Coot swam by.

It was building a nest out of water weeds, and didn't mind us at all, probably accustomed to the gawkers.

We drove a short minute to the high point beyond the bend.

There was a vicuña down there.

And the silhouette of a duck in the middle left.

On the horizon a volcano was venting.

Also on the way back we passed the Machuca church and a village of about 20 houses,

Tourists taking selfies at the church gate.

but, fatigued, decided not to stop. Soon another lagoon appeared.

The signs in the distance say "Don't walk on the beach."

Here Carlos found us an Andean Gull,

Andean flamingos, always in a flock,

and an Andean Negrito.

This last bird drew Carlos well down the beach; then, another guide drove up and ordered us back to the road. We got back into the car and passed the "no pasar" signs we hadn't yet seen.

The three of us ate a filling late lunch in San Pedro, just down the street from the hotel. There was a tower of various meats, plus potatoes and an onion-tomato-hot pepper salad. In meat-obsessed Argentina, and presumably this nearby part of Chile, the saying goes, "Chicken is considered a vegetable."

Back in our room Joan and I had a chance to clean up. Then we had to repack, having been informed that we could take only one duffel with us to Bolivia due to space limitations. Our excess luggage would be saved at the hotel.

The hotel wine-and-cheese tasting was a satisfactory dinner after our huge, late lunch. Tomorrow we would climb back up to high altitudes and another international border for three days in Bolivia.