An early start this morning, with geysers and lagunas on the agenda before crossing into Chile around midday. We start with the red lagoon, at around 4400m, famous for the red tint it shows from a particular form of algae, before ascending to around 4900m, to see the active geysers nearby. The geyser field is small but active, with boiling mud pools throwing up regular splashes of grey, clay-like mud.
Near to the Bolivian border, Laguna Verde is a popular spot for the rich green colour of the water, directly underneath Licancanbur volcano. Today there is a howling gale adding white-caps to the surface of the lake, and we don’t linger long.
It is 15 Bolivianos to exit Bolivia at the border, and the transfer company is already waiting for me to clear immigration, so that we can proceed to the Chilean immigration point in San Pedro de Atacama, about 100km away.
The Chilean government has been busy improving the road leading into San Pedro de Atacama from Bolivia and Argentina, but have yet to fix the problem of Paraguayan truck drivers throwing their rubbish out of the truck window onto the roadside.
I arrive at Awasi at around 2pm, and declare the rest of the afternoon a rest day until I meet my guide Pierre for the next 4 days at 5pm. Given it is my third visit to San Pedro, Pierre throws away the defined list of outings and gets the map out. I am well adjusted to the altitude having come down through Bolivia, and the only thing I am wedded to is making tomorrow an easy day so that I can catch up on some much needed sleep.
One Comment
Beautiful! I loved my time in San Pedro and the Atacama desert. I trvealed from Arica towards Santiago and stopped at many places to just soak in the beauty of the landscape. My chilean friends told me I would love the South, but I loved the North, especially because it was so different from home. The South looks like the Black Forrest ;-)I loved the North for the uniqueness, for the colors, for the people and for the llamas! Awesome shooting!