Geysers and flamingos Atacama

Rude start today as we had to leave at 5am in order to get to the geysers around dawn when they are at their most active. The road was ok to start with but got more windy and rough as we progressed. We climbed up above 4000 metros and I was pleased I had got started on the Diamox the day before as a couple of the women were badly affected by the altitude including one whose legs were just shaking uncontrollably. The geysers were in a crater and with water under the surface coming into contact with the magma it is forced out. We had a picnic breakfast there the best part of which was the hot chocolate warmed in one of the geysers. We stopped at an
Indian village on Our way back and some people had llama empanadas
- goats cheese was a good alternative especially as we had just been oohing and aahhing at some llamas up
The road. The bus returned us to the hotel around lunch time and I took a sleep - getting into this siesta idea.That afternoon we went again in the opposite direction out of town to the salt flats in particular to see flamingos. We stopped at a village part way where there was a lovely church built by the Spanish of course but with an even older tower built by the Indians as a lookout but now used as a bell tower. The were two lovely paintings in the church painted around 1580. A young puppy we befriended came into the church with us and then hot bored and started pulling flowers out of the display so he was sent out in disgrace. I ate a mound of beautiful apricots bought from a store there for all to share. Not sure why so many people didn't want any. Who doesn't love ripe apricots? The salt flats were not flat at all but looked like ploughed grey earth. Apparently the minerals from the volcanos cause the salt to form a sort of hard aerated form. Anyway there was a visitor centre in the middle of this grey landscape and out from there were some wetlands in which the flamingos were feeding on small shrimp. There were other birds as well including lovely black and white avocets. Strange and beautiful the flamingos caused great excitement when any took off as people tried to catch them on camera with varying success. Lovely day overall.