27th November – A lot of hot air...?

Valley of the geysers

Our last day today and we decided to push ourselves and get up at 4.45am n order to get up to the geysers for sunrise – a 2 hour drive away up into the Andes.  Mum and I felt like death warmed up, but Chris was annoyingly chirpy.  Our guide took one look at us and suggested we brought some pillows from our room and snoozed, so we each had 3 seats to ourselves and tried to get a few extra zzzz’s. 

As we approached the valley where the geysers are located, we could see clouds of steam rising into the air in the distance.  The ticket guy informed our guide that it was -10 degrees Celsius outside, and we weren’t surprised as ice had formed on the inside of our van windows!  We parked up, put on all our layers and then went for a walk through the first set of bubbling pools and clouds of steam.  Yes, it was cold and after the 1^st walk, Mum declined to join us on the second walk and stayed in the warm van.  During the 2^nd walk, the sun finally rose and it was incredible what a difference that made.  We got some dramatic photos with the sun shining through the clouds of steam.  Alexandro, our guide, took us to a geyser that erupts every minute or so, so we watched that a few times and thoroughly enjoyed it – we even persuaded Mum to get out of the van to come and watch and she was also mesmerised.

Llareta

We went back to the van for a hot drink and a snack and Chris and I even shed a couple of layers.  Alexandro pointed out some local rodents that look like rabbits with tails.  This comprises the main diet for the foxes and we were lucky enough to see another one very close up.  He was a cheeky chappie and was scouting round the bins looking for an easy meal whilst being mobbed by the Andean seagull.  We were also shown the llareta, a protected plant these days as it’s been over collected in the past by locals as a source of firewood.  It’s an amazing plant that is very slow growing and only grows above 4000 metres.

The Andean coot

We then started making our way slowly back to the hot springs making lots of stops on the way looking at various forms of wildlife and cacti.  We admired more vicunas, saw domesticated llamas, the Puna duck, the Andean coot and the Andean goose plus got our best sighting yet of the Andean flamingoes..  Around 3500 metres we started seeing a lot of columnar cacti which really looked spectacular.

Andean flamingoes

The Puna duck

The hot spring....

After driving down a very rough track, we arrived at the hot springs that Explora manage and have exclusive rights to the top pool.  They were gorgeous and it was just the three of us initially in a natural pool surrounded by pampas grass.  Tiny fish nibbled our feet and dragonflies buzzed lazily around us.  Our guide and driver set up a table laden with food and drinks, so after we’d had enough of the pool, we dried ourselves and had a drink and some nibbles in the sun.  Black hooded sierra finch were very cheeky and kept trying to grab crumbs from the table – I took a nice photo of the colourful male sitting on a pampas grass flower head.  We all agreed that it was the perfect end to a really wonderful holiday.

Black hooded sierra finch

So, now we’re back at the hotel, packed and ready for our flight to Santiago.  We’re staying in some boutique hotel, which I’m sure will be superb based on all the other places we’ve stayed in.  However, we don’t land until 8pm tonight so won’t see much of it or Santiago as we’ll be leaving mid morning for the airport to start our long journey home.