South America, Days 36 to 39 - Stage 9: Atacama desert, Chile

Unexpectedly cold at Tatio geysers. It's the driest desert in the world, but gets cold at night - and we had to be there at dawn to get the best effects. -2 C at 4300m, but it soon warmed up when the sun came out

Day 36 Wednesday 

We'd found the tour agency David, who brought us from the border, works for and booked  a block of tours giving us an easy day to begin. Just a stargazing trip in the evening.

One big smouldering area that changes by the day apparently as new one's pop up and old ones 'sleep' El Tatio means crying grandfather in the local Kunza language and, apparently, if you look at the horizon you can see an old man lying down. Well, I think I can see it just about where the suns about to come up - maybe!

So blog, took forever, and planning. Brian had wanted to cross the border to Peru by land and go to Trujillo and Cajamarca, by plane, but this seemed very expensive to go and see not much. Then the Facebook group had people asking questions about the blockades in Peru preventing travel, as happened to us trying to leave Puno. So with a deadline in Ecuador we decided to get there ASAP. It's a long way, minimum three flights, local airport Calama to Santiago, a long way south, then north to Lima or Bogotá and then Quito. The cheapest option actually meant leaving a day earlier than planned, but our hostel lady kindly gave us a day back, so all good. I had tried going out to find a travel agent as the options seemed many, but in a 'Wild West's town full of tour operators, and more white faces than we've seen anywhere, and food and drink prices to match, there is no travel agent! 

There was lots of bubbling and splashing and all sorts of noises

By the time we'd looked at many options, added baggage, talked about it etc Brian seemed to be locked out of the LATAM site on both his phone and the laptop. Fortunately it all went through on mine. I guess that's the major planning done, so he can finish the last blog.

Stargazing cancelled as too cloudy. We'll go and have a pint then.

Which got more active once the sun rose

Day 37 Thursday 

A very early start, 04.30 to go to the Tatio geysers, best seen at sunrise as this gives best thermal activity. It's dark and I slept atrociously. I blame the pint of cloudy beer and the heat.

Lovely breakfast in the wild after the geysers

The geysers were just that, no bubbling mud pools or vivid colours as we'd seen the other side of the volcano on Bolivia, just lots of steam and boiling water coming out of the ground. It was also jolly cold, -2° till the sun rose when we felt a bit more energetic, as did the geysers.

With a herd of vicunas who were snoozing in the grasses nearby

Breakfast next then. We parked up and out of the back of the minibus came table and cloth, bread, avocado, cheese and salami, cake, biscuits, fruit, juice and hot drinks. Very impressive, and needed.

We're very sorry to have disturbed your snooze!

The journey back had a few stops, smoking volcano viewpoint, flamingos (and fox), and a tiny village with a cute church.

Viewpoint stop on the way back. There was quite a lot of wildlife on this marsh, for a desert. There's a fox on the far bank on the left by that white. If I zoom in the maximum my camera allows....

Back for 12.00 ISH feeling like we'd had a full day. Better have a nap then as we've got the stargazing tonight! Looked at things to do in Quito. We'd hoped to use Ecuador Hop, but this seems to be struggling having never quite got started due to the pandemic, they are just doing trips from Quito which look great, but don't seem to be guaranteed.

There he is, looking for his breakfast

A really early dinner as we'd had no lunch after our tour breakfast after which I felt really peculiar. I am struggling with eating here I have to say and just at the moment as soon as I eat I seem to feel sick. So back for a lie down before going stargazing.

This is the small village of Machuca, with a nice old church that we walked up to

There were quite a lot of us which was a shame, but not really surprising as the previous 2 nights had been cancelled but the guy was very good in English and Spanish. Three telescopes and an assistant to get them pointed. Saturn and it's rings, Venus, Jupiter and 3 of it's moons, nebula in Orion's dagger, some other nebula. Shooting stars and lightning on the Bolivia border all added to the ambience.  A break for drinks and snacks, I must have been feeling off, I went for hot chocolate over wine, then out for photos, as well as the assistant taking photos with my phone! It all felt like a full on, very long day!

There it is, through the arched window!

Day 38 Friday 

An afternoon tour, so more planning. Quito to Cuenca for the housesit. We'd looked at flights months ago when we agreed the sit, but not booked anything, sort of as well, because now I want to go earlier as we will have seen Quito and there maybe more to hand over with the power and water saving. Only now flights were few and far between and jolly expensive. Bus then, there do seem to be quite a few, but not all the stories you hear about Ecuador bus travel are good. This is obviously how we would have done it 8 years ago when we were last here, but this time we've decided to book Edwin, Cheryl the homeowners tame driver. Obviously it's more expensive than the bus, but cheaper than the flight and a lot more convenient. He's collecting us from the airport on our return from the Amazon and taking us straight to Cuenca. This saves lots of money and effort on taxis from the airport to a hotel and hotel, and hotel to bus station and we are very happy with this option. It all takes time to sort out though!

Last stop was a flamingo lake in a lovely setting. I took lots of fabulous photos of flamingoes, as I have before, but I hadn't got one of flamingoes flying, so here's one. They look a bit ungainly with the long necks and legs just hanging out behind

The afternoon tour was to Valle de la Luna, again, a big group, about 15 including 7 Korean or Chinese, mother, a teenage couple and 4 random children. We couldn't work out the relationships. They did what always seems to be the way, lots of close up photos of them with very little of the background, but that's up to them.

Valley of the moon and this was a high point we walked to. The white are salt deposits when there used to be a lake here. Now its jagged rocks and huge sand dunes, but you have to stay on the paths, you can't wander off. I inadvertently stepped the wrong side of the rock path markers and got pounced on immediately by two people!

Despite not leaving till 15.30 it was still very, very hot. There's nothing like drinking what feels like body temperature water.... A great guide and a trainee guide, three stops, some fab scenery. The 3 Mary's only there are only 2.5 of them now after a tourist thought climbing on one of them would be good and a visit to the salt mine where we had to be very quiet, to hear the salt. Brian thought he was having us on, but we did actually hear cracking as the sun caused expansion and contraction. A bit of unwanted excitement as a lady from another group had to be carried out, by most of our young, fit guides and tourists. Hope she is ok, but I guess we'll never know.

The three Mary's. Use your imagination: the middle one is supposed to resemble a Mary upright with her hands in a praying position. The one on the right is supposed to resemble a Mary lying down with her praying hands in the air (Jackie thought it looked like a rabbit!). The one on the left is broken (by a tourist climbing on it we were told in a very disparaging manner)

We then had to leave the park to go have our pisco sour and snacks to fill the time before sunset. We went to Valle de la muerte, death valley, along with numerous other vans. From the parking I just walked straight up, Brian thought to a dead end, but followed me anyway as we went through to a really weird landscape of what felt like hard mud. The Oriental children all followed too so I felt slightly responsible. Brian carried on, three of them veered up a valley on the right and the last one decided to go across the face. Not a good plan. This left him, very less than happy, and me. " No, don't turn round, keep facing the rock, ok, left foot down to here, right to here, push against my hand, there we are...." He thanked me for "saving my life, literally " which may have been slight overkill, but I think I earned my cocktail, and the second one!

A desolate area of the valley of the moon

Back into Valle de la Luna for sunset which wasn't anything special as there was not a cloud in the sky, but hey, a good way to end the day.

In the valley de la muerte for cocktails and nibbles. While they set up we went scrambling ober the hills. There's Jackie down there coaxing the oriental lad who'd got himself in a pickle climbing up. She was calming him down and helping him by pointing out the holds

Day 39 Saturday 

A 7.30 pick up (though we'd been waiting since 7.00) to go to the rainbow valley. Only 5 of us, but sadly our least favourite guide. He knew his stuff but wasn't really a people person. First stop to look at some petroglyphs which were quite interesting, though as with the 3 Mary's yesterday you have to use your imagination. Breakfast stop next, which I was definitely ready for, and a chat with one of the guys travelling solo, from Spain. He was a nice guy, and on his way to Bolivia. We've been looking for someone going to Bolivia as we kept 200 Bolivianos, planning to change them at the border, to ensure we had some cash as we'd read that the limited cash machines in San Pedro can be flaky and or empty. There actually weren't any money changers at the border, and we did manage to get money out of the ATM though an English guy tried before and after us and failed so we were ok. The money changers in town however obviously want nothing to do with Bolivianos as their rate was just over half the official rate. It was only worth about £20 so I said I'd rather just give it to someone going that way than line some changers pocket. He was very appreciative.

Sunset over the moon valley

Next stop into a fab little valley just to see the formations, before heading to our last stop to see the rainbow colours. He told us much about geology and plants, as I say, he knew his stuff, but left a lot to be desired.

These things have to be done!

All in all the trips we've done have been good, and if we hadn't just come through Bolivia we'd probably have been quite impressed, but as it is we certainly haven't been blown away.

We're alone up here! Oh, no we're not!

We are now back on our room which our lady has very kindly said we can keep till we get collected for the airport. So must go and have lunch soon before our transfer to Calama, our flight south to Santiago, our flight north to Bogota and our flight south to Quito. 14 hours, overnight, including layovers. It's going to be a joy!

Our astronomy evening and our host took some nice photos of us

And this photo he took with Jackie's standard mobile phone camera. He mounted it on a stand and fiddled with settings we've never seen before to produce a very nice photo. What we're looking at I don't know, we need Brian W from our village at home to tell us, our own amateur astronomer. Maybe he will, if he does I'll put an edit on

Next day to the valle del arcoiris (Rainbow Valley) and the day started off with a walk over a small hill containing lots of petroglyphs . Here's one with a helpful red painting below it to show what it is

There were lots of them, all depicted animals found in SA. There are few animals in the desert so it indicates people came here from far away for meetings. This one's a Llama

There's the mound with all the petroglyphs on. I took this on the way out at the end of the day, but there's still crowds of people up there

Walking into the rainbow valley. these rock being red show a high iron content, but there is a high content of gypsum (plaster)

Formed by ancient water flow, inside there used to be  a waterfall that carved that slit. So, of course, we had to go in!

Inside looking up. Imagine a waterfall coming down there

It's such a shame that the vivid colours don't come out so well on a photo, but I'm sure you can see the red, white and green rocks ahead

Here it is a little closer

I really need to filter my photos in some way. It was so much more vivid in real life

This still looks quite impressive here, but in real life it was a stark difference in colours 

Last effort. There were greens, whites, reds and some almost purple here. Very colourful in real life

On the way out a herd of llamas

Cute things and they were being herded by a dog. You've heard of a sheep dog, well here's a llama dog

There he is, very much in charge

Well, that's it from Chile (for a while, we'll be back in February), we've now arrived in Ecuador after three flights with long layovers making it a very long night with little sleep. This is our first view near Quito in Ecuador as we came into land. We started this blog in San Pedro de Atacama in Chile whilst waiting for the transfer bus to take us to the airport, but ran out of time, so finished it in Quito, two countries away. A truly international blog entry