More on San Pedro

The rest of our time in San Pedro was amazing! As I said, we went on another tour that began at 4:00 AM, and we went to see the Tatio Geysers. Luckily we had a three hour van ride to get to our destination so we had some time to catch up on sleep! We were told to bundle up because it would be pretty cold at the geysers, but I don`t think anyone expected the weather when we got there, it was only 11 degrees! Luckily our tour guides provided blankets for all of us so it helped with the cold a little! We were at a very high altitude, of almost 15,000 feet, and I was definitely affected by it! Several of us felt dizzy, our hearts were racing, and we lost our breath so easily! It was the first time i`d ever been affected by altitude sickness, but it is definitely a different feeling! There were almost 100 active geyesers in the area we visited, which were beautiful, but did come with the smell of rotten eggs! They varried in size, but most were pretty small. It was amazing to look out across the land and see so many active geysers, with the sun rising over the mountains in the background!

After spending some time enjoying the view of the geysers, we sat in the heated van where they served us breakfast of hot tea and cheese sandwiches. After we warmed up a little, we continued our tour of the area and headed to the hot springs for a thermal bath! The tour was definitely worth the early morning and we got to see some of nature`s amazing beauty!

While we were in San Pedro, we made friends with a group of people from Nicaragua that are actually studying in Santiago. They all spoke perfect english so we alternated between the two languages. It was so much fun to spend time with them, and hear about their experiences both in Nicaragua and so far in Chile. Since they live so close, we will definitely stay in touch!

San Pedro was beautiful, but there were definitely some things we had to adjust to! Since it is in the middle of the desert, water supply is low. Because of this, water in the entire town shuts off at 7:00 PM and doesn`t come back on until 6:00 AM the next morning. There were buckets of water by the toilets to help flush them between these hours, and unfortunately showers were not very easy to come by at any time! Even in the hours with water, showers were barely a drip of freezing cold water. It was either be dusty in the desert or take a tourturing shower! Also, since we had a limited amount of clothing with us on our trip, a lot of people in our group decided to wash clothes out by hand and hang them on trees around our hostel to dry...I think it made us fit in with the locals!

One thing that was really cool about San Pedro were the buildings. Since it is one of the dryest deserts in the world and they never get rain, all of the hostels and restaurants/bars are set up with a huge open courtyard type opening in the middle. Many of them have bon fires that people talk and dance around, and hammocks etc. Also, a lot of the roofs were open in areas where you could look up and see the stars in the sky! It is definitely a place I will never forget. The next stop on our trip is Cuzco, Peru!