Lost in Chilean Andes

Today is April 21, 2019, first Easter day, so Happy Easter everyone!

I have been lost (in positive way) in Chilean Andes for about 2 days and am looking forward to what today’s brings!

Basically this area is a volcanic area, around us would be volcanic ash & powder, petrified lava and salt (because long time ago this area was part of Atlantic sea, surprisingly!). This shows how powerful the nature is!

Actually the salt flat in this area which made me to do a stop over to this area. I know how the salt ended up here and I went to see one of them, Salar de Atacama, sector Soncor, which is also famous as flamingo lagoon. This lagoon is surrounded by the Andes mountain. So what do you expect? Reflection! Magnificent! And the flamingo and other birds are big plus… I wish I can stop the time and stay there as long as I want… seeing this stunning view is really making me the happiest person in the world!

But the journey was not finished yet, as I went even higher up the mountain to about 4200 m, Altiplano (high plateau) lagoon, lagunas Miscanti and Miniques. For a view of emerald lakes around the Andes mountain and red rock. Both are stunning… speechless again, took some pictures and just enjoyed… What an experience getting lost in Andes in Chile!

Being surrounded by the volcanoes, there must be a lot of heat down there which sometimes it needs to release the pressure out as a geyser. Then with a guide and other tourists, we drove into the dark and passing the sunrise time on the way, about 1.5 hours to El Tatio geysers. It was -8oC but it warmed up as soon as the sun came. I used my zipper pants which is quite thin, my angora turtle neck and northface jacket. It was kind of chilly as I needed to open my hand warm pack. We’re quite high also, around 4300 m.

The geyser is ok, but I have seen more impressive geyser in another place (Iceland for example). Again for me, I’m lost in Andes (the grand father’s face mountain) and the sun, the view that I would keep forever.

After enjoying the stunning view, we passed Andes mountain range where we could see some Andes faunas, like vicuna, Andean goose, Andean fox (culpeo), viscacha (a rabbit like with long tail and big), mouse and many colorful birds that I have seen them a lot anywhere else.