This would be my most touristy day in Chile (Day 6), stringing together the two most popular geothermal sites in the Atacama and the most popular drive into the fringes of the Cordillera de La Sal. I left my campsite with a punishingly early 4am start for a long 2hr/90 km drive through darkness. The whole thing felt like a cruel joke: tell tourists that 6am is the best and only time to visit something 2 hours drive down a windy dirt road from their hotels. Even as I started driving on the one-lane dirt road I thought it couldn’t be real, but sure enough, I started to catch up to some other cars’ headlights driving the same direction to the same roadend as me. All of this was to visit the Geysers El Tatio, the third largest geyser field in the world, largest in the Southern Hemisphere, and I have to imagine the world’s highest at over 14,000 ft in elevation. Needless to say the early morning temperatures closest to dawn lead to the best chance to view the steam associated with the hundred plus geothermal features.
After passing a few slow tourists (honestly the closest thing to traffic I saw the entire Atacama trip), I ended up being the third car in line at the entrance gate and pulled up within seconds of when it opened. Brr! It was solidly cold when I exited the car to check in. Sure enough, it was all business as I filled out the standard tourist details, paid, and received the details on where to show my ticket and where to drive. By the time all this fanfare subsided, I ended up being the first to park and set out across the trails at 7am when the first light of day arrived. Out of the darkness the white wisps of steam began to assemble across the sizable basin. The air was super cold and the ground surprisingly icy in places where the streams of warm water managed to fan out enough to cool. I took lots of tripod photos until the light raised sufficiently to switch over to handheld. Most of the features are best classified as hot springs and fumeroles, but there were several true geysers that would periodically boil over and explode with a few feet of height. Probably most impressive, other than just the landscape views of the vastness of the steam plumes and basin itself, were the isolated cinter towers to about 5ft in height (like the frontispiece) and the cascading rimstone pools with their shifting steam and reflections.
By 7:30am it started to get super busy with tour vans galore fanning out across the trail network (by far the most tourists I saw the on my trip). When I had a chance to thoroughly walk the maze of trails at the main area I drove over to the smaller cluster near the remnant of the hot pool that used to allow soaking. Though the features were less abundant here, there were a few singular sources and geysers that were among the most impressive and the slight elevation gave a good overview of the basin. I stayed until about 8am, stopped for a quick overlook detour, then began the drive back as I had another geothermal stop to check out. Fortunately I was now past the sunrise rush to the geysers and had the road to myself.
Since I approached in total darkness I finally got to see what I drove past hours earlier. At one of the roadside ponds I spotted the best closeup opportunity I had the whole trip to view flamingos. I more-or-less stopped in the middle of the oncoming side of the road and snapped my best flamingo photos from my driver’s seat! I noticed elsewhere that they were generally quite skittish of people on foot but did not seem to care that I was less than ten feet away from them in a car. Driving onward, I got a few nice canyon overlooks and passed some nice stands of mature columnar cacti clusters. I would have expected to see more cacti in the Atacama but they seemed to be quite particular in their climate, elevation, and rock choices.
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| Photos taken from the driver's seat! |
I arrived at the Termas de Puritama gate around 9:45am, another check-in, parked, and walked down the steep road into the red canyon. As I descended I got great views of the cliffs, pre-Incan ruins, bright red boardwalk, green strip of vegetation, and the crystal clear waters of the hot spring cutting between it all. It was a pretty spot for sure. Though it took a couple days of planning to book a reservation, I did appreciate the quite limited visitation and could tell the experience would be quite different if they got greedy and let in two or three times as many people at a time.
Upon arriving at the bottom I was told I had seven cascading pools to choose from (#1 being reserved for VIPs apparently). I decided to go for a "pool crawl" by walking down to the bottom pool (#8) and working my way through soaking in each pool up to the top one (#2). This seemed to be the right idea because they got minusculely warmer with each step up towards the source. The bottom one firmly fit in a "warm spring" temperature category, while the top one was a fairly borderline temperature to sit in for a long time. The crystal-clarity of the water, however, was top notch, right on par with some of the best springs I've visited. The depths of the pools were comfortable and the gravel floors were quite pleasant. The clear blue waters, red tuff cliffs, and golden pompas grasses waving in the light breeze were a signature feature of every pool. Pool #5 was the scenic standout with the biggest falls and largest boulders. The dam for Pool #3 had a nice edge I almost feel asleep on. Pool #2 was a surprise as it did not look like much from the "dock" area, but once you got in you could see it had a long pompas grass-lined corridor leading up to a nice curtain waterfall. This was the pool I spent the most time in, enjoying the shade of the overhanging grasses and the warmest temperatures. Eventually everyone left and I had the pool to myself, which was great.
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| Pool #5 |
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| Pool #2 |
I could have stayed until 1pm but was content with walking back up around noon. I ate on the drive back to San Pedro de Atacama and drove straight on to Valle de la Luna, the most popular badland tourist drive. You used to be able to hike off trail and explore some of the salt caves in this park but unsurprisingly as tourism has increased and with it greater impacts, so too have the restrictions to match them. After getting instructions I drove into the folded badlands. Despite warm midday heat I opted for the two longer hikes in the area. The first hike was a neat loop across sand and up a wash past crystalized gypsum and halite to a nice along-strike view of the same anticlinal basin I traversed on the "gasline road", then returning along a sharp ridge, and descending down the interesting dam-like Duna Mayor. The second hike had a little more up-and-down but different terrain and I had it all to myself. As I wandered around the textured badlands I found it quite hard to take a photo that did not have to perfect cone of Licancabur on the horizon- it really demanded attention.
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| Valle de la Luna with Volcan Licancabur on the horizon |
After I drove to the roadend and took in the other stops I drove back towards San Pedro. I guessed at a dirt road on the outskirts that I thought could have a nice view, and indeed I was rewarded with an glance at Quitor ruins and the Valle de la Muerte. After I drove up to the top viewpoint included in my Valle de la Luna ticket price. I got weird looks from the guard for not doing the standard tourist thing of waiting until sunset for the classic shot, but the considerable upshot was having the whole place to myself. Very nice panoramic views across the folds. Given my early start to the day (and plans for a full final day tomorrow), I was happy to get back to camp pre-sunset. I think I got scammed by the gas attendant at the COPEC station as I paid more for less gas than the day before, but I really can't imagine what power I would have in that situation. I ended the day exhausted, mentally preparing for another early start (5am this time). I felt like I touristed hard! I was slightly off the schedule of the tour groups to bypass most of the crowds throughout the day. I enjoyed all three places and the flamingos were the icing on the cake.
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