Tuesday, Sept. 30, 2003 - 3:38 a.m.
Lakes, Geysers & Entering Chile
We had to get up at the awful hour of 4:30am in order to go see the nearby geysers. It was pitch black and freezing outside as we loaded our stuff onto the jeep and took off before the other groups were ready. Andres had his abominable tape playing agin. We rode in silence, darkness and an icy chill. The landscape was again bleak, we were just following tiretracks in the dirt. The longer we rode, the lighter the sky slowly became until we reached the geyser field.
In a landscape that reminded me of something lunar we saw a huge conglomerate white cloud slowly emerging from the earth, like dragon's breath. To our immediate right was a perfect mini geyser of symmetrical proportions. Andres told us this one was man-made wheras the others were natural. We could hear the sound of hot air spewing out of the brown, rocky ground as soon as the freezing air outside hit our faces when we exited the jeep. Next we drove down to the depression in the earth where the natural geysers were. (Note: in Britain and Australia, they pronounce it "geezer", which, I told my fellow travelers, to me is a crusty old man).
We walked around, all bundled up from the cold. This and the bubbling mud pots, of course, reminded me of Yellowstone National Park. Then the group of us balked when we noticed Ivan and Vanessa walk right into the geyser field. Our guide books all warned about the dangers of the ground giving way and travelers being burned or killed from the geysers. We yelled out for the two of them to get the heck out of there, but they didn't seem to hear us. Soon we couldn't even see them anymore through the thick steam. We marveled at their foolishness. Perhaps they didn't know, we speculated. I hoped they would be okay.
We got back in the jeep and waited for them. When they returned they said, smiling, "It was so warm!" "Yes, but it's very dangerous" we repled.
We returned to the road and bad Latin music. About an hour later we stopped at some hot springs. Even though the sun was higher in the sky it was still freezing cold outside. We got out of the jeep and walked down to the hot springs. One one side was ice, but on the other was a little pool, about 1.5 ft deep. We tested the water and found it to be hot, like a toasty warm jacuzzi. Some of us took off our shoes and put our feet it and it was wonderful. Everyone but the two Scottish girls put their feet in. Ivan and Talbot even stripped down to their boxers and went all the way in the pool, lounging like in a warm bathtub. I would've liked to have joined them, but for one thing, my towel was tucked away in my bag atop the jeep at that time. Soon other groups joined us and more people came wading in the warm waters, happily chattering in different languages.
Andres got breakfast ready and soon we were drinking coffee and eating bread rolls with dulce de leche (a sugary brown paste) and jam. The day before, during a conversation with the others, I remembered that I still had coca leaves with me and that I wouldn't be allowed to bring them into Chile with me (only in Peru & Bolivia are they legal). Mairi told me she heard of a guy going to jail for attempting to bring about 10 leaves into Chile. I had much more than that in my plastic bag--I had bought it and taken it with me on the Inca Trail. That morning I enjoyed my last cup of coca tea. A little later I gave my remaining leaves to Talbot, since he wasn't going to Chile, but returning to Uyuni.
Our last stop on the tour was the Laguna Verde, a beautiful green lake next to patches of pure white salt, again nicely framed by picturesque chocolate brown mountains, and the waters lightly sprinkled with a few grazing pink flamingos. We got a group photo before we left. As we departed we noticed a few bicyclists camping next to the lake. We again marveled at their courage. If you're biking this part of the continent, how do you know where to go in this roadless region?
Soon we reached the frontier, the border with Chile. We said goodbye to Talbot, James and Andres, who were all returning to Uyuni. Then the rest of us went through the formalities of filling out immigration cards and getting our passports stamped. Then we got a ride in a minibus to San Pedro de Atacama, Chile. There we had to pass through Chilean customs, which were much more thourough. Here they had us step onto a small sponge covered platform with some kind of disinfectant, much like we had to do when we arrived in the Galapagos Islands. There was a sign saying that Bolivia had foot & mouth disease and to turn in all your shoes for disinfecting, but nobody asked us for our other shoes & when I asked our minibus driver about it he said it wasn't necessary. While waiting to get my passport stamped I watched officials spray the tires of all the entering vehicles.
I also surprisingly ran into some of my Israeli friends. While waiting at the Chilean immigration another bus pulled up and I saw Efrat, Eadit, Oshra, Inbar & Liat. I was able to talk with them briefly. They had not been stuck in La Paz as I had thought, but came down to Uyuni on that Saturday and took a tour of Uyuni as I had. They told me they were going to Argentina as well, and planned to go straight on to Salta that day. I asked them why they didn't just go due south from Uyuni to Argentina and they answered that someone had told them this way was quicker.
Then I had to leave and about 10 minutes later we arrived in San Pedro.
This is a small little oasis of a village in the middle of a vast & dry desert. The guidebooks say this is the most arid place in the world and I had my extremly chapped lips to prove it. This village, so small my guidebook lacked a map, had narrow one lane wide dirt roads and a small plaza. It is very touristy and seems to attract a lot of hippies, but I liked it nevertheless. However, going to Chile, especially after Bolivia was a shock to the pocketbook. I went from one of the cheapest countries in the contient to one of the most expensive. Where I had been accustomed to spending about $3 on accomodation, I was suddenly having to spend $10 (still, very cheap by US standards, but more than twice what I had been spending before. Even in Peru and Ecuador, I spent on average, much less).
As we were driving into Chile, I suddenly realized that I had a lot of Bolivianos that I would need to change into Chilean pesos or some other kind of currency. I hadn't planned ahead. I had $250 worth of Bolivianos left over from the cash advance I'd gotten in La Paz, as well as a little bit in US dollars, expecting to spend at least another week in Bolivia. The guidebooks advised getting rid of Bolivianos before leaving the country since nobody wants them outside Bolivia.
Once we arrived in San Pedro we were let off right next to a casas de cambio & a travel agency that the driver said we could exhange money at, but I learned would only exchange a small amount at a time. I went to the money exchange place and discovered they gave a terrible rate for Bolivianos. I realized I'd lose a lot of money if I exchanged all my Bolivianos there. But then, what other options did I have? Maybe wait until I get to Argentina? The odds were not in my favor. I exchanged a small amount of money for the time being and then I went with Mairi and Mhairi, the Scottish girls to find a hostal.
Soon we were chilling in a 3 bed hotel room ($10 a person a night), even though it was only 2pm, we'd been up since 4am and were exhausted. Mhairi wasn't feeling well, so she slept while Mairi and I went to find a place to do laundry and get something to eat.
It was quite a change climate-wise to go from the salars where it was often cold, especially at night, now to the desert where it was warm night and day. It was nice to feel warm again and that afternoon we all relished having hot showers. I noticed right away Chile is a much more developed country. There was even toilet paper and soap in the public bathrooms!
Sometimes walking around we noticed people tossing water onto the dirt roads. We wondered why and I learned later it was to reduce the amount of dust.
That night at 10:30pm just after I turned off the lights to go to sleep there was a knock on the door. Mairi & Mhairi were already asleep. It was the hotel lady who ran the place. She asked if we had registed, which we did when we had arrived, done the usual procedure of giving our names, nationalities, ages, passport numbers, professions and our previous and next destination. Then the lady told me we hadn't paid for the room. I found this very strange. Never before in my travels (or in the US) had I ever had to pay for a room the night before. I asked if we could pay in the morning and she said okay and left. Then I went back to bed.
