Day 23 El Tatio Geysers, Aticama

 

It was a very early start as we were picked up at 5.00 am to go to the El Tatio Geysers high in the mountains. This was our final excursion of the holiday. It was a 90 minute drive and was very cold when we arrived (around 0C) and we saw several frozen lakes on the way up. The reason they do this tour so early is because the steam from the geysers can only be seen while it is cold. It disappears when the temperature rises which happened today at 8.30am and from then on all that can be seen is the bubbling pools. We saw many types of geysers and hot springs. It is the highest geyser field in the world and the 3rd largest after Yellowstone in the USA and another in Russia.


 
El Tatio Geysers

 
El Tatio Geysers and sulphuric pool

 
El Tatio Geysers and coloured rocks

 
Paul and a cone geyser

 
Hot pool of water from geysers

 
El Tatio Geysers

 
Selfie in front of one of the bigger geysers

 
Geysers erupting

 
Geysers

 
Geysers

After our walk around the Geyser field we had an outdoor breakfast high up in the mountains overlooking the geysers which gradually seemed to disappear.  Some Andean Gulls were soon flying around to take advantage of any food dropped.

 

 
View from our breakfast location.  The light coloured
area is where the geysers are but no steam as it was getting warm.

 
Breakfast table

 
Andean  Gull and shadow

 
Andean Gull swoops in to get some dropped food

 
and then takes off again

On the way back to the hotel we saw an active volcano - Volcan Putana -- and had a short stop at a wetland area in the foothils of this volcano where we saw some Vicunas , Crested Ducks, Giant Coots and Andean Geese.

 
Volcan Putana

 
 
The wetlands

 
Giant Coot on nest with mate and chicks

 
Andean Geese

 
Crested Duck

 
Vicuna on the Wetlands



We then passed through a “ghost” village called Machuca where the houses remain but no-one lives there. They used to get work at the nearby salt mine but that is no longer operating so they have all moved to towns nearer to work. They still keep ownership of their houses and come back from time to time and the houses are well maintained.

 

 
Ghost town of Machuca

Our final stop was at a lake where there are lots of Andean Flamingos and Crested Ducks. We had a very short walk and then continued our drive back to the hotel passing some spectacular scenery on the way.

 
Andean Flamingos

 
Andean Flamingo

 
Andean Flamingo

 
 
Endangered Cactii.  These were being used in 
huge numbers for the craft industry so are now a 
protected species.


We had a very lazy afternoon after 3 non stop days of activities.  We caught up on some sleep then sat in our little garden area outside the lodge. While there a cheeky little sparrow type bird hopped around and then went into our lodge.  It eventually came out on its own.   I went for a swim in the hotel pool but it was a bit too cold for Paul so he did some packing instead.  

 

 
Refreshing swim

I

 
Sparrow type bird that came into our lodge

 

We went into the town early evening and had a good walk around and then had a pizza in a very nice restaurant.

 
Main street at night

 
Restaurant that we ate in tonight





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