Sunday, May 4, - Day 138
I got up at 3:30 am to catch a 4:00 am bus to go see the Geysers of Tatio. The geysers are 140 kilometers away, and sit in the shadow of Cerro Tocopuri, an active volcano with a summit of 5,808 meters (over 18,000 feet). At 4,321 meters (over 13,000 feet), the geothermal field we visited is the highest in the world. They are at their best between 6:30 and 8:30 am, which is why you have to leave at such an un-Godly hour. We got there just as they were beginning to spew, and it was -15 degrees celsius, or about 5 degrees farenheit.
There is magma 3,000 meters below the field, and the ambient temperature and air pressure moves the ground water around in such a way that they meet every morning and produce the steam. Since you can just walk around on this field, I moved around from vent to vent keep warm until the sun finally cleared the top of the volcano.
On the way back, we stopped by a little village called Machuca. Here, with the help of the government, some native people have built a relatively new pueblo based mostly on ancient traditions. They have always used this land, and now they get solar power and a few other modern conveniences. I kind of think that it is set up as a tourist trap, but there’s nothing here to really do but walk around and look at the church.
I thought about going to Bolivia for a couple of days because it’s close. It seems, however, that I’ve lost my Chilean Tourist Card, which is a pretty big set-back. Though I’m not sure what the card’s purpose is, you have to have one to leave the country. They give you the card as you enter the country, then you have to give it back when you leave. Nobody else will ever ask to see it, and it doesn’t appear that the border agents do anything with it, other than to stack them up as busloads of people cross into Argentina, Bolivia, or Peru.
To get a new card, I went first to the local police here in San Pedro. The officer there said that I need to see the “aduana” (tax) people, and they have an office that is not far away. The lady in the first office pointed me to the other side of the building, and of course, they pointed me right back to where I started.
From there, I was referred across the street, and that office referred me to office next door. So on my 5th stop, I finally met someone that seemed to know what was going on. Without even looking at me, he said that I had to go to the office of the Policia de Investigacions Extranjeros, which is in Calama. That’s ok, I have to go there tomorrow to catch my flight back to Santiago.
The only reason I’m a little concerned about this is that you need this card to get out of the country. The only web-based information I can find on this says that there is usually only one office in each State that can provide a duplicate tourist card, and in this State, it’s not Calama. It’s Antofogasta, a city that’s about 300 kilometers from Calama. If I don’t get this done tomorrow I’m really screwed because I get back to Santiago at 10:00 pm, and I have a 8:00 am flight to Lima and then Cusco on Tuesday morning. So I won’t have time to chat with the Policia de Investigaciones in Santiago, my US$800.00 airplane ticket is non-refundable, and a bus to Cusco, the only reasonable alternative, will take 4 to 5 days to get there. And oh yeah, it looks like there’s a US$100.00 replacement fee for the tourist card.
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