Day 63 - Coldest day ever!

San Pedro de Atacama

The alarm was set for 4am this morning for our trip to the geyser El Tatio, as we were due to be picked up from our hostal some time between 4:30 and 5:00am. As it turned out the bus didn't arrive until 5:15, and we were the first ones on .... so by the time everyone was collected it was approaching 6am .... could have done with a bit more sleep!

The reason for the early start is that the geysers are more active in the morning, since the steam (and other gases) leaving the geyser are more visible in the cold air of the morning. We arrived to see numerous plumes of steam over quite a large area. However it was also very cold ... we were at an altitude of about 4320 metres and the sun was barely up, we were told the temperature was about -10 degrees.

The temperature wasn't cold enough to stop some brave souls from jumping into the warm water, our excuse was that we forgot to bring a towel .... instead we tried to stand in the sun and hopped from one foot to the other trying to get the cold pain out of our feet and hands while waiting for eggs to be cooked on a small gas cylinder.

On the way back to SPdA we stopped at the almost deserted indigenous village of Machuca, with an interesting church as well as the income sources of barbequed llama and a paid toilet. The church was nice enough (though M was told off for using his flash) as were the skewers (which tasted like salty beef). K asked the guide where all the people were, as the village as pretty dead and the houses were all locked up. It seems that everyone was out tending to their flocks, but we also get the impression that the village is now just used to support tourism in the area. Along the way back to SpDA we also stopped to see some flamingos and vicuñas (a member of the camel family, along with llamas, alpacas and guanacos).

At 4pm we headed off from SPdA to Laguna Cejar, a salt lake in the Salar de Atacama (or Atacama salt flats) which is comparable to the Dead Sea in salt concentration and floating ability. We had our bathers and towels for this one, so we changed and headed toward the edge of the laguna. However by this time the day had turned overcast and windy, and it was surprisingly quite cold. The encrusted salt at the edge of the lake was quite difficult to walk on in bare feet, so right at the edge of the water K chickened out, leaving M to brave the freezing water alone (and after the initial shock of the cold it wasn't too bad).

After drying off (though not quite recovering from the cold), we drove to a new spot to watch an amazing sunset while we were served pisco sours and snacks.