Los Geysers del Tatio

Probably the most impressive, and the most exhausting, of the trips was seeing geysers at sunrise.



Seeing them at sunrise meant that we left San Pedro at 4 AM, which is fine is you go to bed at 6 PM the previous evening. We got to bed around 1 AM, overslept the alarms, and got ready in record time when the hostel manager knocked the door 15 minutes after we were supposed to be waiting outside.



And the lovely prospect of sleeping on the 2.5-hour ride to the geysers was made difficult by heavily rutted roads. Katie almost got sick, and I came out of my weak sleep every time we went over an especially violent bump, which was often.

However, all bitching aside, it was worth it. Los Geysers del Tatio make up the highest geothermal field in the world, for one of many odd facts that we learned on the trip. Our guide put chocolate milk in one of the pools and we were later rewarded with delicious hot chocolate.



Stories of people falling through soft crust and being boiled to death frightened Katie at first, but we found nicely marked areas to walk and admire the natural blow holes. It was amazing, though, when what seemed to be an inactive random hole would suddenly send up several feet of sulphury water, steam and fumes with almost no warning. Thus, we were careful.



After the geyser field we were the only group of probably 15 vans to go an awesome natural spring. You had to step on stones not to burn yourself, because the floor of the thermal creek was insanely hot. I unfortunately discovered that when taking a poor step on my way out, burning my foot, howling in pain, falling over into the stream simply to alleviate my foot, and in the process splashing multiple people resting on the edge soaking only their feet. It was a sight. It was also incredibly painful and taught me much more respect than watching the geysers had done. I guess molten lava isn´t a joke after all.





Katie and I then split up the 20+ hour bus ride back to Santiago by first catching an overnight bus to La Serena, spending the day on the beach (which we pretty much had to ourselves now that vacations are over and fall is coming on), and catching another overnight bus back to Santiago that evening.