El Tatio geysers

Apart from the delayed start, the tour was pretty good. The drive up there in the dark on some rather dodgy looking roads was sort of an experience in itself. We got there in time for sunrise and it was all very impressive, lots of hot water and steam hissing out of the ground. (You go that early in the morning as the temperature is lowest then, so there's more vapour produced and hence it's more impressive.) I took some pictures which I doubt I will ever be able to upload due to poor internet access and which I doubt capture the experience at all. Still, I will put them up anyway if I can.

As a result of the sulphur in the water, the vapour (which you can feel and inhale 'safely' at some of the geysers) has a sort of "boiling eggs" smell. It was quite pleasant in a strange way, certainly not the "rotten eggs" smell I might have naively expected. I put 'safely' in quotes as apparently the sulphur isn't great for your lungs, but I guess the quantities involved and the timescales make it effectively OK.

The guide was very keen to tell people to stick to the path. Apparently 5 people have died (over admittedly some large period of years) by stepping where the crust wasn't solid and getting badly burned. The guide seemed to enjoy telling us that if you get burnt over more than 50% of your body, you are two hours from the nearest hospital and all that they can do is give you morphine to reduce the pain while you take two or three months to die.

Apart from me, the tour was split between a group of Italians and some Chileans. I did OK with the Spanish, although the guide (Dutch, but born in France) spoke six languages including English, so when there were no other Spanish speakers around she spoke to me in English.

I didn't try the thermal baths. There were no lockers (yeah, maybe you would expect that, but I had no idea) and since I had my passport with me that was an absolute killer. Plus it was a choice between than and taking a look at some other geysers, and I would have missed some of the more impressive ones if I had done the thermal bath thing.

El Tatio is at about 4300m above sea level (compared to 2500m here in San Pedro de Atacama). I didn't realise this until the guide warned us to walk around slowly when we got there. I was OK, which surprised me, although there were a couple of points where I was walking along and talking and found myself a bit short of breath. This makes me feel a bit more comfortable about the Uyuni trip, which I just booked for, as that involves some similar altitudes. Everyone on the trip seemed OK, except one poor woman who felt a bit ill and spent the entire trip sat in the bus. I don't know just how bad she was, but if she was actually suffering rather than just short of breath it must have been hell being stuck up there instead of being able to go straight back down. She seemed OK-ish if quiet in the bus though, so I guess she was probably not that bad.

And I will get to try the thermal bath thing on the Uyuni trip tomorrow anyway. Hopefully with fewer people around to be embarassed in front of. :-)