December 13-14, 2007 - San Pedro de Atacama, Chile

December 13, 2007
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I had a restless night´s sleep. I woke up at 3:15 AM and was ready by 3:45 AM. There are a whole lot of stray dogs in the area and they create quite a racket sometimes in the night. Being awake at 3:45 AM, this is the only music I was hearing! To be fair, I have also heard roosters crowing in the early hours of the morning both at La Serena and in San Pedro de Atacama.

The tour bus picked me up at 4:15 AM. I noticed at least 2 couples from my ´Salar de Atacama´ the evening before. I sat up front. After a brief introduction (during which our guide Danielo told us that it would take around 2 hours to reach the Geysers), I tried to sleep as much as I could during the ride to the Geysers.

The Geysers are located at an altitude of 4300 metres above sea level. The track to the geysers was a dirt track and the ride was not smooth. Nevertheless, I managed to catch as much sleep as I could. On reaching the Geysers (around 6:45 AM) we were given an introductory talk by Danielo about the nature behind this cause and the safety precautions one must take while in this area.

The Geysers are MOST active between the hours of 6:30 and 8:30 AM. This is because the earth´s crust warms up after that and the geysers do not spout much steam or water after that. Hence most of the tours to the Geysers leave San Pedro at 4 AM to reach here at 6:30 AM. The Geysers at Tatio are approximately 85 Kilometres (53 Miles) from San Pedro de Atacama.

It was bitterly cold here. I was wearing a long sleeved Jersey, a sweater and a fleece, ear muffs and gloves and was still cold! The say the temperatures in the early morning during which these tours are done can be 10 to 20 degrees CELSIUS below ZERO! Camera Batteries can be drained very quickly by this cold weather and it is advisable to keep the camera under your jacket when not taking pictures. Your appearance might be ugly (with a large belly) but at least you will not run out of battery juice!

We were also provided breakfast at the Geysers. Each tour company carries breakfast in a large cooler and the spread was set out before us now. They used the steaming geysers (smaller ones) and the hot waters to boil eggs, water (for coffee and tea) and milk.

Compared to Yellowstone, these Geysers are not massive in any way. The largest of the geysers spouts steam for about 15 feet or so. The Geysers at Tatio are definitely at a far higher altitude than the geysers at Yellowstone. I really missed the wondrous, sulphurous smell that is characteristic of the geysers at Yellowstone!

The TATIO area also has a small Thermal pool where the water temperature is appropriately hot for a dip in the early morning. These pools were filled with scores of school kids from Santiago who were on a vacation to San Pedro de Atacama.

We had to pay the entrance fee of CLP 3500 (US$8 approx). From the geysers we headed towards the small village of Machuca.

Enroute we did quite a bit of offroading and spotted flamingos (Chilean and Andean), Vicunas, Llamas as well as Suris (a bird similar to the Ostrich) that can travel at speeds of 75 Kilometres (50 miles approx) per hour. I had a cup of Cocoa Tea (Yes, made from Cocoa leaves!) at Machuca village while Danielo (the guide) had a Sopapilla. I promised to try the Sopapilla the next time it is offered in Chile. This is a wheat based pancake deep-fried in oil (Similar to the Indian dish - POORI). Folks spread some sugar on top of this and eat it.

I was dropped back at the Hotel around 12:30 PM. I took a nice hot shower and hit the sack! It was too hot to go out for Lunch. I had a 4-hour siesta. On waking up, I did some trip planning for the subsequent places I was visiting (Easter Island, Peninsula Valdes etc.) and left the hotel after 6 PM and headed to the Centre of San Pedro de Atacama.

I headed to the SPACE office (yes, that is the name of the agency) to find out whether there are any tours to observe the night sky here. As I mentioned earlier, it can be quite gorgeous at night (even to the naked eye). There were sessions scheduled for today and for Friday evening. The Friday evening session seemed a better one. I booked myself for the 9 PM session on Friday evening and headed to Cafe export for dinner. I was quite famished as I had not had anything since having a weak breakfast at the Geysers. I had a very good tomato soup, an freshly squeezed orange juice along with a vegetarian Pizza.

The second personable waitress (First one was in La Serena) in a week served me. An eye catcher from Temuco (from the Chilean Lake District) who was studying tourism and theatre. She was working in San Pedro for the summer.

One reason San Pedro is more accessible for Vegetarians is because the tourist population here is mostly international while the tourist population in La Serena is mostly Chilean.

On returning from dinner, I ran into Amor and her Aunt. I told them I would not be able to Join them for dinner. I provided an update on my visit to the Geysers (They were scheduled to do that on Friday Morning). Amor and I promise to stay in touch.

On reaching the hotel, I did some off-line blogging at the hotel computer. I wanted to transcribe these notes onto some electronic form so when I find an Internet connection, all that would remain was a cut and paste operation!

I listened to AR Rahman and to Beethoven´s 9th before going to bed. Yes, I am carrying an IPOD with me.

Tomorrow would be a free day for me until the astronomy tour at 9 PM. Hope to transcribe all my diaries thus far during the day tomorrow.

Many of the fancier hotels in La Serena (Kimal, Tulor etc) will offer a package costing Hundreds of dollars for a 4 or 5-day stay here. They do Include all the tours I talked about. Although the rooms might be a bit nicer, I would advice against overpaying to these "all-inclusive" hotels. The amount of money I spent on these tours Including the entrance fees is probably less than CLP 50000 (US$105 approx.)

Dec 14, 2007
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An even more leisurely day. Finished breakfast by 9:15 PM. Cristina´s office was open and the maid told me that I could go ahead and use the computer for my writing. I spent the next 3 hours transcribing my diaries to a notepad document.

Hope to upload it soon for your reading pleasure. Keep the comments coming. And don´t forget that I will upload pictures if you can tell me a way to upload / convert CANON RAW Images to a JPEG format.

I started my offline blogging around around 9:30 AM and finished around 1 PM. Hopefully I will be able to do this more often. (Considering that I am doing an update 5-days later, I guess it is not possible!).

Cristina came into the office and logged me onto the Internet. I uploaded the blogs, checked a few e-mails and was pretty much done.

Cristina told me that there were 2 minor tremors (earthquakes) early yesterday (Dec 13) morning. This was around the time I was getting ready to go to the Tatio Geysers. I did not feel anything at that time. Come to think of it, the Tatio Geysers guide (Danielo) also mentioned something about tremors! Oh well, no harm done. Would have been nice to experience it though!

I went out and had some fruits and juice for lunch. Followed it up with a siesta from 3:30 to 5:30. I set out at 6 PM to a high-speed internet cafe (so the claim went) to check my credit card charges. All was well. The credit card company had not charged any service fees for using the credit card outside the united states. The high speed internet costs CLP 1000 (US$2.2 approx) per hour. Increasingly, La Serena appears to be a very inexpensive place. (Compared to what I am experienced in San Pedro and what I am experiencing now in Easter Island)

Visited the space agency and booked myself on a astronomy tour for 9 PM that evening. The cost was CLP 12000 (US$25) which I paid with a credit card. Increasingly I am trying to conserve cash and use plastic if and when I can.

I had dinner at La Casona (yet again) ! For the first time, I tasted the Chilean dish called QUINOA. It was SIMPLY FANTASTIC. It is similar to the Indian breakfast dish Rava Uppma with carrots, peas and corn throw in as well. I had ordered a fettuccini as well not knowing how big this quinoa dish was. I could not finish the fettuccini! I wish I had held on and order the Quinoa again, rather than ordering the fettuccini. I am in Easter island now and I yet to taste anything better than that delicious QUINOA.

I visited some local artisan workshops before heading to the space company office around 9 PM. A dozen folks were already there waiting for the tour. We boarded a mini-bus and left San Pedro around 9:15 PM. After a 15 minute drive, we reached Alain{s house. This is situated in the middle of the desert on a large tract of land. There were a row of 8 telescopes or so arranged on the lawn. Needless to say these were much smaller than the ones even at Mamalluca.

After a brief introduction inside his house, we were taken outside and shown the most easily identifiable stars, planets etc. Mercury - the red planet - was quite easily visible as was ORIONs belt. He had a really cool laser pointer whose beam seemed to almost reach to the stars he was pointing at! Got to get me one of those toys.

The more interesting aspect of this visit was that one of the telescopes is pointed to the moon. Alain has a number of T-Mount adapters, that he used to connect our cameras (Point and shoot as well as different makes of digital SLRs) to the telescope. Yet another expensive hobby, I am bound to acquire! I think I got some decent pictures of the moon using this method.

Using the other telescopes (each of which points to a different star, galaxy etc) we took turns observing the night sky up close. One of the reasons he had said no Photography was possible during the 11:30 PM session (which I had attempted to join yesterday) was because the moon would more or less not be visible!

We did not get to see the meteor shower that was predicted around this time. (Dec 13/14).

The show and tell concluded in Alain"s house with the guests being served hot chocolate, tea etc.

One interesting titbit (although I think I have heard this before). SUBARU is named after a 7-star constellation as there were originally seven car factories that decided to combine their operations and form SUBARU.

The minibus picked us up around 11:40 PM and I was one of the few dropped off at my hotel. The rest were dropped at the centre of San Pedro and told to walk to their hotels. I tipped the driver CLP 1000.

Packed up most of my stuff before I went to bed as I have an early pickup (8:30 AM) tomorrow to take me to Calama airport.

I have enjoyed my 5-night stay in San Pedro de Atacama. It is definitely worth a visit.