After another field season of work in Peru, I met Carmel in Chile for a little holiday. She
had just moved back to the US
and was about to start her new job. We had kind of held Chile back a bit as a tourist
destination—after Brazil
and Argentina—because
it seemed a bit daunting to cover in a short time and we simply didn’t
know that much about it. Because my work was in June/July, it was winter in Chile
so we decided to avoid the far South of Chile because of the coldness.
Instead, we went to the Northern desert
of Chile, called Atacama, then went
to Easter
Island, and finally finished up with some time around Santiago, Valparaiso
and Viña del Mar. I’ve got to say
that we were extremely impressed with San Pedro de Atacama. It was incredibly
beautiful and there were tons of things to do.
The mysteriously beautiful glow of the Tatio
Geyser.
We knew about the 4am sunrise trip to the Tatio
Geyser, but we decided to book it for our second day there. However, we found
ourselves awake at 3.45am the first day so we decided to jump out of bed and
run around the town in search of a bus going to the geyser. Sure enough we
got in on a tour, but just paid the driver on the side to get on it so we
ended up saving some money.
Who’s that lurking in the mist…
The surface of the ground is shaped by the water.
With the sun now over the horizon, more is revealed.
As the air heats up with the sun, the steam reduces from the geyser.
The area itself received scarcely any rain, so while the geyser itself is
very wet, the surroundings are bone dry.
This part serves as a “pool”.
Mind you, the air temperature was still something near freezing…
That’s about as much courage as we could muster up.
A couple more hot and steamy pics.
Some wildlife near the geyser.
Llamas!
An interesting animal called Vicuña.
Catching up with the Vicuñas on the road.
First light reaching the top of these peaks.
Volcano in the distance with a halo of cloud overhead.
Giant cacti finding a niche for life in this barren landscape.
Our next stop was Valle de la Luna, which resembles the moon’s surface.
Sandy trails.
Moon rover.
Carmel’s hair
got really straight in the dry air. I, meanwhile, had not shaved since my
Amazonian/Andean fieldwork.
Entrance into Valle de la Luna. Reminded us of Petra in Jordan.
Wallpaper of time.
Salt deposits.
The rock weathered to create tiny columns everywhere
The path continued on over this climb.
Rock weathered down to leave remaining what are called the Three Marias.
Three Marias and Two Tourists.
Nice views from where I sit.
Unusual clouds gathering in the distance.
More neat landscape.
Volcano in the distance shining from the top.
A break in the clouds as seen by the sun on the salt flats in the distance.
Here we can see a thick pocket of trees that were planted to try to stop the
advancement of the desert. The trees were chosen because they have unusually
deep and fast growing rooting structures, which allow the trees to survive in
the desert. In the background there is a white road winding into the
foothills. This road leads to a massive international scientific project to
develop the largest Southern Hemisphere astronomical telescope.
Next up is the Chaxa Lagoon, which had mirror lakes
and pink flamingos.
Chaxa Lagoon.
View from a different direction.
Looking up.
Pink flamingos flying by.
Moving over to the LagunasAltiplanacas,
which had brightly colored yellow shrubs dotting the land.
Laguna Miscanti.
Laguna Miñique.
A brush-stroked landscape.
Vicuñas wandering nearby. I
asked a guide if they have any natural predators, and just as he started
describing the fox predators…
…a fox showed up.
Our last day had me sandboarding down the dunes of
the Valle de la Muerte.
Alas, no ski lifts so I had to hike the dune each time.
It was pretty much like snowboarding, except with a lot more friction so you
could go down really steep slopes and not go too fast, though the control was
weaker because the board sunk into the sand a bit rather than gliding around
ice.
We dug out a little jump.
Ay carumba!
Afterwards, I was shaking sand out of my shoes for days.
All
aboard!
For our very last stop, we went to the salt flats to take a dip in the lake
to clean off the sand from sandboarding.
This is about as far as we got in before we determined it was entirely too
cold for us.
You can kind of see here two perfectly round lakes. What they think happened
was a hundred years ago the native people dug two groundwater wells looking
for water. The holes in the ground eventually eroded over time and the holes
got bigger and bigger until they were the size they are now. They call the
two “lakes” here the ojos, or eyes.
