San Pedro de Atacama (part 2)

Thought I would bring the story of San Pedro Atacama up to date. I've now posted some more photo's on Facebook that can be found here. On Saturday I had a whole day trip organised. In the morning we travelled to the Atacama salt flats to Chaxa lake which is a Flamingo reserve. The ground around the lake was a solid crust of salt. Three different species of Flamingo live in and around the lakes but unfortunately I don't remember their names. I was the only English speaking person on the trip so the poor guide, Claudia had to keep repeating everything a second time for me. We then drove up to the Altiplano lagoons, Miscanti and Miñiques Lakes, which are located at 4,220 m. Hopefully the photo's are able to convey how incredible the views were here. The lakes are surrounded by snow capped mountains and volcanoes. Chile has one of the highest number of volcanoes on its territory and they are quite proud of this as well as the fact that when they erupt the ash blows over into Argentina! We stopped on the way down for lunch in a restaurant which inevitably was chicken with rice which is a staple in Chile. Following a rather late lunch we drove back to San Pedro de Atacama. I had a pretty early night as the next day I had arranged to visit the  to go to the Tatio Geysers, a geothermal centre with geysers that can only be seen very early in the morning (so they tell us) and therefore involves leaving San Pedro at 4 am. It was worth getting up so early and braving the temperatures of -8 C, the springs are up at 4800m. We were served some basic breakfast and a welcome hot drink. Once the sun came up we were able to have a dip in some nearby natural hot springs which was very nice except for having to get out afterwards to get dressed.  On the way back we visited Machuca, a small llama herder settlement. The village is filled with adobe houses with thatched roofs. For photos of these trips you should go to here . We were back in San Pedro by midday so I had an afternoon to kill, or so I thought. I had checked out of my room in the hostel before I left at 4 am but was still able to have a hot shower when I got back luckily. The previous evening I had called up the bus company to arrange to be picked up at my hostel to transfer to the airport at Calama. I had to use my best Spanish to do this. I thought I told them I wanted to be picked up at 7pm, my flight was at 11pm. After I had a shower I had gone for some lunch in San Pedro and then wandered back to the hostal at around 2.30 pm. I sat and read for a while and thought I had hours to kill. At around 4 pm a man came into the hostal calling my name and it appeared he was ready to transfer me to the airport. Fortunately, I was all packed and ready to go and also actually there as I had been thinking of wandering off for a drink. It dawned on me later that they must have thought my flight was at 7 so booked the transfer for some hours before. It actually all worked out pretty well as I was able to get an earlier flight and be back in Santiago by 9. There was a potential for a real balls up there though.


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