Tatio Gijzers en Salar de Atacama
This page describes our travel to Chile. We visited Santiago, briefly, but spend most of our time in and around San Pedro de Atacama.
The trip started out a bit arduous, with a trip of over 24 hours from Los Angeles, USA, to Santiago, Chile, and then to San Pedro de Atacama. But it was all worth it.
Timing was perhaps not optimal, because it was winter, and almost none of the hotels and hostels has heating. But going in the summer is probably also not ideal...
Anyway... read about our adventures, below.
A quarter to four in the morning. The sky is dark, and will remain dark for another 2 hours. It is cold. Freezing cold. The alarm is still calling. We get out of bed reluctantly, because our room is not heated, just like in many other hostels and hotels in San Pedro de Atacama.
We make this sacrifice to arrive at the El Tatio geysers at around 6 o'clock, after more than an hour of dirt-road driving. El Tatio geysers are the highest-altitude geysers in the world at some 4200 meters (13,800 feet) above sea level.
The Tatio geysers lie scattered around a 10 square kilometers area (about 4 square miles). The geysers are plentiful and come in different sizes, but unfortunately the water is squirted out less and less high over the years. During our bus ride, we are told that they used to be 15 meters high, but now we should be happy if we get to see one squirting 4 meters high.
We unfortunately have hit a bad streak of days. It is very cloudy when we arrive. And clouds mean no sun, and no sun means no (or not a lot of) activity. Although many geysers bubble, and a few spew some water up to a meter high, it is a bit of a disappointment. It is not quite like in the brochures.
After a simple breakfast provided by the tour operator we step into the van again, to go up the mountains to 4 of the oldest and biggest geysers in the area. These geysers are truly big, and produce a lot of vapor, but relatively little water is squirted into the air.
Near these four big geysers lies a very small one too, of about 3 cm (1 inch) in diameter. From it flows a continuous stream of hot water, which is collected in a large pool. Here, a lot of tourists fight the freezing cold for a few minutes, to take a plunge in this naturally heated pool. The air is still around zero degrees Centigrade (32 degrees F), but I decide I have to take a swim as well. With a few acrobatic feats I help myself into my swimsuit. The acrobatics were desired because there is no place to change into one's swimsuit, but to do that in front of 70-some tourists.
The rocks around the pool are cold, and I start to loose the feeling in the soles of my feet. After a brief moment of hesitation, I step into the pool... "Ahhh, warm..." Twenty-five degree Centigrade (77 degrees F) to be exact. A few meters from me it is closer to 30 degrees (86 deg F), but I am not able to reach that point because the area is crawling with other tourists. I just as happily swim towards the other side of the pool, to feel, just for a moment, alone in this thermic bath on top of the world.
After this brief bath, I perform a few more acrobatic movements to put my cloths on again. Then we drive in the direction of Machuca, a village of 5 inhabitants and a church. Shortly after leaving the geysers, everyone is asleep. Suddenly, the van comes to a halt and we wake with a start. The guide yells: ¡llama, llama!. Or lamas. Our first wild lama's are standing in a piece of green pasture, in a valley of only stone. A small stream of water runs between the isles of grass, to supply the grass with water.
By the way, the fact that the lamas are free to walk around does not mean they do not belong to anyone. To identify who they belong to the Atacameño put differently colored straps of cloth around the neck and head (for female lamas) and neck and belly (for male lamas). Indeed the pieces of cloth are strapped around the body part that rules most of the behavior for the two sexes... The colors of the straps (or "flowering") tell who is the owner.
We shot half a roll of pictures (figuratively speaking, of course), and jumped into the van again. After a short trip we arrived in Machaca. The white church dominates the small town that contains some 10 brown buildings. The church is said to have a very beautiful interior, but the priest, who does not live in the area, opens the church only sporadically. In stead of entering the church we enjoy some lama kebab, and discover that lama tastes a lot like lam.
After this gastronomical highlight we drove some 1 and a half hours back to San Pedro de Atacama, where we arrived just past noon.
After a brief midday break it was time for our next trip. At 3 o'clock we had the Cejas (or also Cejar) laguna on our program. It was a trip with a lot of swimming, potentially. We drove out of San Pedro, and in to the desert. It is a barren land. We see tussocks of grass, and small bushes, but everything is arid. The salty soil is not much of a help.
The Cejas laguna is a geothermic lake, which means that the water is heated by a subterranean source. It is as if a sort of volcano is heating the water. It is a nice-looking dark blue pool, surrounded by white sand, or actually salt (remember that we are still on the San Pedro saltflat). We are invited the take a dive. I hesitate. April doesn't, she is not going. But I do go eventually. The water, it turns out, is freezing cold. Nice geothermic pool this is....!
But when I continue, and wade a bit deeper, until the water is about 30 cm deep, I feel that the lowest level of water is pleasantly warm. I slide deeper into the water, and keep floating to my surprise. The water in Cejas is so salty that you do not need to swim. Still, I rather not float too much, because that means that my whole body is in the upper 30 centimeters of water. Cold water. I enjoy a few minutes of natural spa, and then decide to go back. It is windy (and winter), so it is not really all that much fun to get out of the water. The tour operator gives me a brief shower, with a hand-help device, to clean off all the salt, and I present another set of acrobatic skills when putting on my clothes again (this time with fewer spectators, but still...).
We hop on the bus, and after a short trip through the saltflat we arrive at two water-filled holes in the ground: los dos ojos (the two eyes). During the summer, people swim in los dos ojos as well, but we gladly skip that today. Afterwards we move on to a big shallow lake that disappears in the summers to leave beautifully carved geometrical mosaics in the salty grounds. The idea was to watch the sun set here, but it soon is apparent that the clouds will prevent us from seeing a nice sunset. Moreover it is rather windy, and it even briefly rains (an extreme rarity this time of the year). Although we do not see the sunset, we do see a rainbow, which is quite special too.
