The steaming gysers at Tatio
3:30am. I switched off the alarm before it had a chance to wake everyone in the room. I had been counting the minutes for the past couple of hours. For some reason I just couldn't get to sleep last night. I looked at Ali who was comfortably sleeping in bed next to me and shrugged her quilt. There was no response. I shrugged it again. Tapped her on the shoulder...hit her on the back...finally she woke up and removed the plugs from her ears. "The time has come" I said with a menacing tone of voice (for no other reason than to amuse myself). After a few reluctant attempts we both got out of bed and fumbled around quietly in the dark to prepare ourselves for the day ahead. At 4:00am we were picked up from outside our hostel and began the 2 hour journey.
The steaming gysers as seen from afar
In order to see the Tatio geysers at their best it was necessary to make an early start. We arrived just before dawn after driving for 2 hours in the dark. We had reached a height of 4,320 metres in the Andes where the volcanic hot spot was situated. I couldn´t quite believe my eyes as we drove closer towards the jets of steam escaping from the earth. Violent spurts of boiling water sprung into the air producing water vapour. An effect which is only possibly when the air is below zero, hence the reason why we arrived so early. It was such an amazing sight as we watched the plumes of steam rise upwards illuminated by the first rays of sunlight. After a brief introduction we were allowed to wander around and take an even closer look at the gysers. It´s hard to believe that the water was boiling to the point of bubbling. I couldn´t help but think about what lay just beneath my feet. But even the thought of such heat didn´t help keep me warm. I was bloody freezing and had difficulty breathing in such thin dry air. There was a girl in our group who had to lay down in the back of the bus because she was experiencing altitude sickness. I myself felt light-headed and was dangerously cold. I was shaking uncontrolably. I heard someone say it was -10oC. That didn´t surprise me. What did surprise me however, was the ingenious idea of boiling eggs in one of the gysers. I watched in amusement as our guide carefully placed a bag of eggs into the hot bubbling water. A carton of chocolate milk was also heated to perfection in the same way. 20 minutes later, breakfast was served and we all enjoyed hard boiled eggs, a sandwich, chocolate and coffee.
Machuca village church
I was just starting to get warm when I had to take all my clothes off. Except for my swim shorts that is. Yes, it was minus 10 degrees and I was wearing nothing but swim shorts. One of the advantages of geo-thermal activity is natural hot springs. We of course couldn´t resist bathing in the hot muddy water and I jumped straight in. I foolishly didn´t observe the best place to enter the pool and took a big step into what looked like a shallow area. It wasn´t. I instantly sunk almost waist deep into the mud and couldn`t easily get out. I panicked for a while until I eventually managed to climb back out. Almost freezing at this point, I followed the others to a deeper part of the pool where there was no mud. The temperature was perfect and every now and then you could feel a wave of heat as the land beneath us ejected more hot water. It was an interesting experience to say the least. After the painful process of drying off and changing back into warm clothes, we drove onwards to a small village called Machuca. The settlement is located to the northeast of San Pedro at a height of 4,000 metres. We saw a church, several small huts/houses before buying a delicious empanada from one of the locals and a hot cup of mate de cocoa. It´s a tea made from cocoa leaves. Not a huge fan of it but aparently it´s very good for dealing with high altitudes. On the way back to San Pedro I saw more active volcanoes than I could easily count. It was incredible. Our guide did point out his favorite which looked like a woman's breast. I also saw llama for the first time. The llama has special biological characteristics that enables it to adapt to life at high altitudes. This special animal has many significant benefits to the people who live at such great heights. Only the old llamas are killed so they can eat their meat, use their skins and fibres for clothes, use their faeces as a fertilizer and when the faeces are dry, they use them for fuel. Llamas really are an invaluable assset to the locals. It´s no wonder they worshiped and depicted in a lot of art. Finally, we got see flamingoes. Their natural habitat is the salin environment of the Chilean high plateau and we stopped to take a look at them dining in the lake.
When we arrived back in San Pedro I didn´t want to do anyhting but sit and read my book. I´m currently reading Crime and Punishment by Fyodor Dostoevsky. I have only read half but I reckon it´s my favorite book so far. I thank my friend Michael in Chicago for the recommendation!
My first llama sighting
