geyser del tatio

it was a great experience to see the Geysers in action early in the morning. Be prepared to stay in the line for the bathroom break as most of the tour busses come to the geyser area at the same time in the morning. Many travellers take a bath from the hot spring. Change rooms are available. Most tours add a another tour site to the Geyser tour as activities of the geysers are done by 8:30 AM. You don't need to book this tour in advance. We booked it after we arrived in SPDA.

A 4.30 am start and a long drive to the geysers but well worth the trip. The scenery is amazing and the panoramas spectacular. A very photogenic experience. The colours change as the sun rises. You do need warm clothing but do not forget your swimsuit.

I loved everything !! I went with Whipala Expedition and the guide Hugo was the best guide ever! We departed the hotel really early in the morning, around 4:30am to get the full experience! Incredible!! The scenery is amazing and it is better to do this tour on your second or third day in Atacama so your body can get used to the high altitude.

The change of colours as the sun came up through the steam from the geysers was beautiful, you can walk around and see the new geysers forming and in places feel the earth beneath move slightly from the pressure.It's a long drive to get there!

A pre dawn trip to the geysers requires a 4:30 AM pick up. It is much warmer in San Pedro then at the geysers since they are located high in the mountains. Dress more warmly than you think you should and maybe you will be OK. I should have had a full winter coat and didn't. Don't make this mistake.The Andean landscapes and valleys are unforgettable. Don't miss this excursion.

You need to wake up early so as to catch up with the sunrise behind the geyser. The Awasi Hotel has arranged a personal tour for us wherein we have a comfortable sit-down picnic breakfast after appreciating the geyser.

The Geyser del Tatio tour is an early morning rise. We did this tour with the company Whipala. You are picked up between 4:30 and 5:00 AM at your hotel. It takes about 1 ½ hours to get there at sunrise when the geysers are at there best. Make sure you dress warm with mitts. Breakfast was included in the tour price. The tour continues looking for wildlife along the way. You return back to your hotel around 1:00 pm. Fantastic tour with Whipala!!!

The day started at 04:30 a we got up whilst is was still dark. We had booked a tour to the Tatio Geysers with Luna Dorada Tours as the owner/guide (Paul) spoke excellent English. We were collected at 05:00 and headed out of town and started climbing straight away through dirt roads that were heavily eroded in places. I started feeling unwell and thought I was taking a bug or had travel sickness. However on arrival at our destination I discovered when I left the bus I was dizzy and light headed and feeling very nauseous. The temperature was hovering around freezing and everyone was wrapped up and cold in the early morning. We walked very slowly to our first geyser - difficult to describe in words. It was bubbling and steaming with small spurts - not too high. As light started to appear in the sky, the geysers started to display the colours of the mineral elements - green, red, ochre. There was a slight sulphurous smell but not too strong. We walked through the geyser field - over 60 active geysers. This is the third largest geyser field on earth. Yellowstone is the largest, then one in Siberia then El Tatio. The morning light was spectacular as the rising sun glinted off snow covered volcanoes. After the walk I felt even worse. A light breakfast was served in the cold on a table beside the tour bus. All I could manage was some coco tea - coco leaves in hot water with a very mild narcotic stimulant meant to assist in altitude sickness. It made me feel worse. We climbed back on the bus and I was struggling to get sufficient oxygen. A short drive took us to the little pools filled with hot water (35 degrees Celsius) that you could enter. On leaving the bus this time I thought I was going to pass out - the nausea was so bad. The guide got assistance from someone else who gave me some drops to help - but they didn't make much difference. Sonia went for a dip in thenthermal spring but at this stage I was curled up in the bus feeling thoroughly miserable with myself. I dozed on and off during the next couple of hours as the bus made a couple of stops. The first was at an ancient settlement called Machuka where there are ruins dating from 1800 years ago. They had built a replica pueblo which looked a bit touristy. Sonia had a walk and took some photos. The next stop was at a lagoon with wild vicuñas and flamingoes. Another stop was to see a llama and there were lots more vicuñas. We started to descend and I started feeling more human again. The views through Cactus Valley were wonderful. These Cacti grow 1 cm per year - some of them are over 10 meters tall making them over 1000 years old. We were eventually dropped off at 12:30 and we collapsed into bed to catch up on some sleep.

It is necessary to wake up very early in the morning to see the impressive spectacle of the "Geyser del Tatio" but do this. This is amazing, the extension, the place and when the sun raises, the surrounding is also impressing.

I have mixed feelings about this trip. It was only OK for me. Yes, it was nice to see the geyser area surrounded by the mountains, but was it worth the trip? Not really. If you have seen the geysers in Yellowstone, then I would choose a different trip in the San Pedro area.If you do go, dress warmly, take a bathing suit and towel if you decide to go into the hot spring pool (I didn't think that it looked that appealing). Most tours provide an on site breakfast so don't worry about missing your coffee.If you take a private tour, maybe you could stop at a location on the way out of the geyser area that had a great view of the mountains with their reflection in a small laguna. We were on a larger tour and did not stop there, instead wasting some time in a small village so we could be sold grilled llama.

It was such an amazing experience! Something I will never forget!!! If you want to visit this place be sure to arrive there before the sun rises because this is the better time to watch the geysers. It's the time when they are tall enough to be seen in all their beauty. We left our hotel at 5:30 am and arrived there realt early in the morning so we could see how beauty this place is. Be sure to have a warm coat, pullover, gloves and so on because at this time in the morning it is freezing!

Well worth getting up early to see this sight. The roads are rough and its a bit like the 'wacky races' on the drive up! Our hotel recommended two days altitude acclimatization before going on high altitude trips. I recommend waiting. Our trip included a cooked breakfast ! Take trainers or boots, warm clothes, hats, gloves scarves because it was freezing and a waterproof jacket. On the way down we stopped at Andean village.

I was a little deterred by the 05.45 start from the hotel to visit the geysers but it was well worth it. The weather was very cold when we arrived but we had been warned to bring extra - warm clothing, which we did and for which we were very grateful. As the sun rose we became warmer and saw the bluest of blue skies. The geysers themselves were fascinating and I only wish I could remember all the information we were given by our guide. We made several stops around the site to observe the geysers in the different stages of their development and also enjoyed breakfast at 4300 metres - altogether an unforgettable experience.

We are travelling in our own campervan so we drove up to the "visitor centre" the evening before. This is a big flat carpark with very clean toilets. We had to register and pay 5000 pesos each. We were not allowed to drive through to the actual geysers until 6am the next morning, it was still dark. By now lots of small tour buses were arriving but we went straight in as we had already registered. The road was terrible, very bumpy, there were no signs, we didn't know where to go. Wisps of steam rose up on each side of us. Quite daunting! After about 5 or 10 minutes we found a car park and got out. It was freezing, I wore 6 layers and lined trousers, gloves and a hat! By now the minibuses were pouring in. People were walking about all over the place. The only "safety" messages were lines of small stones around the bigger geysers and demarking paths. The sun rose at about 7.30. The geysers were great! Near the carpark there were a lot of people, so to get more evocative photos we walked further away and some cars even drove up a small track to escape the crowds.At about 9am the tour buses served breakfast to their clients and by 10am they had all disappeared. So we now had the whole place to ourselves! The strength of the geysers seemed to diminish a bit as the day wore on. Groups of vicunas came down to drink. It was idyllic!

If you go after the coach parties who go for dawn have left, you almost have the place to yourselves about from the huge variety or bird and wild life. Magical.