I booked this Tour upon arrival in San Pedro de Atacama. The 4am pickup was painful but I did manage to snooze most of the 2hour drive out to El Tatio. Arrival at the geyser field coincided with the rising sun, which was sensational and gave the geysers a spectacular appearance.
El Tatio is a geyser field located within the Andes Mountains of northern Chile at 4,320 meters above mean sea level. Its name comes from the Quechua word for oven. It is among the highest-elevation geyser fields in the world. — Wikipedia
Boy, was it cold….scrap that! It was freezing!! I’m glad I paid attention and bought 3 layers of clothing as recommended. The guide estimated the temperature to be between -5 and -10. The opposite of what I would have expected in a desert. It was fairly unpleasant, others on the tour asked repeatedly if I was ‘ok’, as I was white as a ghost and my lips were violet. I was very keen to move on to our breakfast stop to warm up, much too my disappointment the guide got a folding table out of the back of the van and starting setting out food. I drank 5 cups of tea back to back in an attempt to feel normal.
After about three hours total at El Tatio, we head back toward San Pedro de Atacama, stopping in the village of Machuca. I bought some Alpaca socks to ensure I was prepared for the next expedition.