places to visit > abroad

El Tatio, Chile

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screwyouI'mfromderby:
El Tatio is a massive geyser site on the plateau near the Bolivian border. You can get there really easily by taking a tour from San Pedro De Atacama. All the drivers are mental so expect the worse on crappy roads.

Once there, you'll get some 'food' and even some boiled eggs done in water bubbling straight from the ground. As part of the tour you get to see the sunrise so it'll be about -15 degrees on arrival. As we all know this is about the best temperature for climbing so get your socks off and get up some rocks. There's loads of stuff knocking about the geyser site and you even get to see hippies find themselves near boiling mud!

The best part is furtherdown the road, and the success depends on your tour. We got treated to some massive diversion and ended up going through some desperate villages, condor sky and then, oh my god, one of the best and most photogenic climbing areas I've ever seen. Red stone, wind sculpted into crazy scoops and overhangs with hardly a crimp or edge in sight. If you've seen what Antarctica does to granite you'll have a good idea of what these are like. It sits on top of another section of the plateau, right on the edge and overlooks some turquoise lake. I say overlook, you can see it about 50km away.

Here's the rub, if you do make it here, take your shoes and learn to SHOUT in Spanish. We shared the minibus with about 10 nattering Chileans so our calls to stop the bus went unheard. If anyone else knows about this place let me know, and if anyone wants to go back there count me in.

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