Day 196 - Atacama Desert, Bolivia/Chile

CROSSING THE ATACAMA DESERT FROM BOLIVIA INTO CHILE (16/07/09)

Our final day of travelling across the desert. We got up way before dawn since the geysers and other geothermal phenomena are most active at this time. Unfortunately the temperature at this time of night had dropped to a rather uncomfortable -20ºC, hence the lack of smiling. It was, however, amazing to get so close to a geyser, the power and noise it made was incredible.

As the sun rose it turned the sky beautiful colours, despite the geysers attempts to disguise it with it´s sulphurous steam.

Standing in the steam was a double hardship - not only were we freezing cold but the smell of rotten eggs was almost overpowering.

Bubbling mud-pots can be quite a hazard before dawn with the impaired visibility caused by the steam. At least one tourist has been accidentally boiled to death in the past. Oh well, there are plenty of them...

At last the sun made an appearance over the horizon bringing with it some well needed warmth. With any luck it would raise the temperature to a sweltering -7ºC over the course of the day.

Liz wrapped in as many clothes as she could at the frozen edge of another lagoon.

You know it´s cold when Adam puts on a wooly hat and gloves.

Another ancient volcano bordering the rather unoriginally named Laguna Verde (green lagoon).

The end of our Jeep trip. Rather than returning to Bolivia with our car we opted to be dropped off at the Bolivia/Chile border and catch a bus from here to the Chilean town of San Pedro de Atacama. Our driver assured us we would have no more than 45 minutes to wait but we should have known by this point never to trust a South American when it comes to times...

Three hours later we were still waiting for a bus- freezing cold from inactivity at about -5ºC. Liz would probably have looked considerably more miserable if she had known at the time that we still had another three hours to go.