Geysers and Moon Valley

Yesterday morning, we woke up at 4:30am to be ready for our 5am transport to the Tatio Geyser fields. The tour started early so that visitors could best see the hot steam from the geysers (the mornings are pretty chilly here, even in the summers). Despite the early wake up, it was neat to be awake at this time to see more stars. Our super chill tour guide, Igor, was there to greet us. He spoke Portuguese, Spanish, and very good English. Still impressive to me how these people can shift between languages so effortlessly.

The drive took about 90 min from San Pedro through curvy bumpy dirt roads. The driver must have memorized the road because he knew exactly when to slow down, avoid holes, and when to gun it. We got to the park entrance, paid the entrance fee, and continued driving inwards. These geysers literally sit at 14000ft elevation. Imagine being at the top of a Colorado 14er, but then look in all directions and see either flat desert plains or even higher peaks and volcanos around you. Igor informed us that just in this field alone, there are 80 active geysers, from which we could see the steam rising in the moonlight.

There is an underground river system in this area alongside magma chambers that cause the water to evaporate and escape through the permeable rocks on the surface. There are both conical geysers formed over several decades of deposit, and fountain geysers, which are conical geysers that collapsed on themselves. Igor explained how different geysers die and are born relatively rapidly. Also, the water at this elevation boils at 86C instead of 100C like at sea level. Igor showed us the layers of mineral deposits on the surface as well as the bacteria that originated from the original species that first inhabited the planet billions of years ago.

We got to literally walk within 2-3 ft of spewing boiling water. Very very cool and unique. Seeing the conical geysers and how each layer builds upon itself was wild. Each layer takes about a year to form, so the geysers that stand 3-4 ft tall are over 1000 years old.

As the sun was finally rising, we got to the most violent of the Geysers, appropriately named the Killer Geyser. Igor cautioned us against taking reckless selfies as people have actually died here. They try to walk across a small bridge of rock between two boiling pools, trip, and plunge into the deadly water. The nearest hospital is 3 hrs away in Calama. The water in the pools did look extremely clear and inviting, but nevertheless, deadly.

The sun rose around 8:15 am over the mountains and it warmed up considerably, and Igor served us breakfast and hot chocolate in the middle of the desert. On the way back to San Pedro, we stopped to see a few species of Flamingo (The Andean, Chilean, and James). Flamingos aren’t actually pink, but instead gain their pink hue from the shrimp that they eat. We got back to town around 11am and found a cheaper place to lunch.

At night, we relaxed, rented bikes for today’s ride, and bought some must-needed Gatorade. The rental only costed 10 dollars for 6 hrs of ride time, so we planned to leave around 8:30am and get back by 2pm. Then, randomly, for about 2 minutes, it started to drizzle outside. Hunter and I’s faces as we heard the patter of rain on the sheet metal roof was funny. Monica, our host, was delighted at the sound as it probably is a rare occurrence here.

This morning, we woke up around 8am, packed up, and headed out. Instead of getting a tour to see the moon valley, we decided to bike through the park ourselves. All the online info told us it was going to be a hard, hot bike ride, and it lived up to the hype. From San Pedro, we biked about 6km to the park entrance on a paved highway. From there, it was all hilly dirt road. Even I used all the sun protection and precautions, admittedly, a rarity for me.

We biked about 6km more to the first lookout point atop the “Duna Mayor.” It looked like a whole different world, more like Mars than anything Earth-like. We stopped at a few other look out points and even a salt mine. There were salt patches all over the place and we could even see the massive salt flat expanse from some of the higher lookouts in the distance. The dunes looked surreal and definitely distorted our depth perception. It would be very easy to get lost in an environment like this, especially if heat exhaustion and dehydration set in.

Since we started so early, there was no traffic at all. Most of the time, it was just Hunter and I on the road for long stretches of time. And so, it was quiet, still, and felt very remote. We did not see a single plant. Starting early was a huge advantage as it stayed relatively cool till about 10am and all the tour busses aren’t allowed in the park until later in the afternoon.

In total, we biked and walked a combined 25 miles and stopped at 4 places. The steeper hills and elevation here killed me while Hunter was hardly breathing. Just a little bit annoyed. The condition of the rental bikes did not help either as they were very hard to shift properly and the shocks barely worked. Little bit of a rougher ride, but glad for a workout in such a unique and ancient place. On the way back, we got to see the wide panorama of Volcanos spread along the horizon. Chile has over 2000 volcanos, of which 10% are active.

Tonight, we are packing up and enjoying our last trip night together. We are going next door to the bar with live music and will try the Piscolas they have advertised everywhere here (Pisco and coke cocktail). Tomorrow, our transport will pick us up by 9am to get to Calama, then a super tight connection that will get us to Bogota. From there, Hunter and I part ways as I head home and he heads to Ecuador. I will land in Denver around 10am Friday morning, that is, if all goes to plan.