Atacama Desert--the highest geyser basin in the world

 

vicuna blend in with the grass and rocks

Yesterday, we drove north from San Pedro de Atacama to the Del Tatio Geyser Basin, at 14,100 feet, the highest geyser basin in the world.  And still, the Andean volcanoes towered over us.

volcanoes taken from 14,000 foot high valley

Here, there is little vegetation at the lower elevations, but it begins to gather above 10,000 feet with low dusty-green bushes and, still higher, larger bushes and beautiful clumps of golden grass.  In the sunlight, it is a lovely sight, gold and green up against the mauve and gray peaks.  Vicuna and llamas live here--and we saw lots of both.  The vicuna are smaller and blend in so perfectly with the vegetation so that they can be hard to see.  The llamas are many colors from white to spotted to speckled to tan and black or all the above.

llamas in front of Andean house

There are several flamingo lagoons on the way to the geysers, very high at 12,000 to 13,000 feet, and crowded with pink flamingos.  It’s very surprising to see them here when you think of flamingos living at sea level.  A beautiful bird, the Andean Goose, also lives at this elevation.  These birds mate for life and, reportedly, if one dies, the mate stops eating.  We did see mostly pairs, but one lone goose who looked like he was doing fine.

flamingo lagoon

Andean Indian families live in this very high and rugged desert environment.  Their homes are adobe and/or stone.  It looks like their economy is based on raising llamas and vicunas as agriculture is impossible at this high altitude with its very cold nights, even in summer.

small geysers with volcanoes in background

Andean Geese

The geyser basin covers several square miles.  The geysers burble along and then shoot off, mostly several feet, but some reached about 10 feet in height.  There are several mud pots, bull of thick, boiling mud.  Other places, you can hear all the boiling water as you walk along, but there is only noise and a little steam coming out of the holes.  While the geysers are not as spectacular nor as scattered as those at Yellowstone, they keep spouting cheerfully as you walk among them.  And the 18,000 to nearly 20,000 foot volcanoes all around the basin are stunning.  There is a pleasant natural pool fed by the hot springs where you can swim.

colorful fumarole

Most of the excursions to the geyser basin leave at 6 in the morning in order to watch the sun rise over the basin, which is freezing cold at that time, so has lots of steam lighting up the morning.  I do not like to shiver and I prefer to see beautiful places without crowds, so we arrived at about noon and had the place all to ourselves.  It was wonderful.  We had passed about a dozen vans full of people driving back to San Pedro as we drove up the steep, rutted road to the geysers, so we knew we were happily missing the crowds.

The graveled road leads north out of San Pedro and climbs steeply to a high point of about 14,500 feet, then drops slightly to the basin.  The colors of the grass in the sunlight, backed by the dark mountains, are spectacular.  We had lunch on the plateau above the geyser basin, loving the cool air, sunshine and silence in this beautiful world.

our view at our picnic spot