<< Petroglyphs

04/06/12 - Tatio Geysers (Part 1- The Journey)

Most people go to see the Tatio Geysers at dawn. We had already seen an Andean dawn at our own private salar, so we went to see the geysers later in the morning. En route, we passed tour bus after tour bus, all heading back from their dawn excursions. By the time we arrived at the geysers, there was one other car, a Belgian family with one of those biycle campers soaking in a hot pool, and the caretakers.

We were originally going to take a serious hike, down a hillside, along an old road then through a canyon and up to the geysers. There was a beautiful view of the mountains, but we were at 15,000 feet. Our nerve failed us, so we decided to head back to the thermal field where the geysers were and take a five kilometer (three mile) hike on level ground.

We stopped to take a picture of a baby vicuna.

And some geese

Isn't he (or she) cute?

The field of geysers

An amazing setting

This is the hike we didn't take. We were SO disappointed, but our lungs thanked us.

A little lizard

Back to the thermal field

One of the many pools of boiing hot water with colorful heat friendly algaes around it

A close of up the pit

A string of thermal ponds

Keywords: chile