Sunday, April 1, 2012

Geysers & hot springs

Even for an admitted morning person like me, it's hard to be excited about much when your alarm goes off at 3:41 am and it's freezing cold outside. That said, if you can manage to stay mildly warm while changing out of your pajamas and into every layer you can produce from your backpack as quickly and as quietly as possible so as not to wake your roommates, you will be handsomely rewarded with some spectacular star gazing. The air in San Pedro de Atacama is famously clean and given that it's a sparsely inhabited desert, there is virtually no pollution whatsoever to obscure the night sky. The stars were clearer than I've ever seen. I know next to nothing about stars and even I was able to pick out the Milky Way and countless constellations. Had I not been practically in the fetal position trying to conserve body heat as I waited to be picked up, I would have taken photos to post here!

 

The reason I was up so early was for a day trip to see geysers. About two hours east of San Pedro is Tatio Mallku, home to a series of geysers. It was a long and winding drive on dirt roads during which I tried, with minimal success, to regain some lost sleep.

 

We climbed off the bus and into the darkness. In all fairness, we must have been a hilarious sight. Tourists from a dozen countries stumbled off of half a dozen different buses, shivering and in a sleepy daze, wandering around trying to follow their tour guide but inevitably joining another tour group by mistake or forgetting which of the identical looking buses they left their backpacks on. Fortunately I managed to not get misplaced and to learn a little something about geysers, too.

 

A few thousand meters into the earth, magma meets rock and the pressure and heat result in geysers spewing steam and water at regular intervals. Voila!

 

Geysers are usually found in the vicinity of volcanoes and, happily for me, all this geothermal activity meant there were also nearby hot springs.

 

To be clear: it was cold outside. We had been up since well before the sun in hopes of catching a lovely sunrise (it turned out to be a foggy morning so sunrise was pleasant but rather anticlimactic) and no one had properly warmed up even though the sun was now out. In fact, after the geysers, I opened up a packet of hand warmers...that I hadn't needed to use on my trip to Antarctica! With that said, I wasn't looking forward to inevitably getting out of the water, being soaking wet and having to get changes outside, so I compromised and got in up to my knees...

 

...before deciding to get all the way in. The water was definitely warm but it seemed to come and go, leaving us to chase the warmer waters as they shifted around and leaving those on dry land to wonder why all of us insisted on crowding together!

 

The drive back was broken up by a few stops, some planned, most not. We visited the village of Machuca and had a look around.

 

The village's population has shrunk considerably in recent years as local opportunities diminish, but the crosses on the roofs serve as a reminder when this community housed miners and the crosses were meant to keep the devil away.

 

Those who have stayed profit from the tourist buses that stop here daily. I contributed by buying a goat cheese empanada. It's not quite the same goat cheese as in Europe or North America, but I'm not one to complain about melty cheese and hot bread.

 

On the way back to San Pedro, the driver was kind enough to stop so we could take pictures of wild vicuñas...

 

...domesticated llamas...

 

...the scenery...

 

...and cactuses.

 

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