Archive for October 31st, 2010

Day two, several lagoons and flamingos

Sunday, October 31st, 2010

Our guide told us to get up at 530 to have breakfast and be ready to go at 6am. We were all up had breakfast and then we waited… and we waited… and we waited. It wouldn’t have been to bad except the breakfast was just stale bread and jam. Not what we were expecting. Our guide finally showed up about ten to 7 it was not the way you want the day to start. No big deal, we all loaded up our gear and we headed off into the desert. The scenery was pretty monotonous, but I liked it, anytime I can see all the rocks because of lack of vegetation is a good time for me. We stopped and looked at an active volcano that had a vent on the side that was pumping out sulphur gas. It wasn’t much if you have seen other volcanoes but it was a nice first stop. The next stop was fantastic; we came across a lagoon that was full of flamingos. It was great the color of the water, the reflection of the mountains plus all the birds. I think I got some really great pictures here. We proceeded to stop at 5 or 6 more lagoons through out the afternoon., we seen a fox and a rabbit as well.

We had lunch in this canyon full of rocks it was pretty neat. We climbed up on some of them, lunch was really good as well. Shortly after lunch we arrived at some crazy rock formations one shaped like a tree. More climbing and pictures were taken here. After this stop it was a long stretch of desert. There was another jeep that we kept passing then it passed us and vice versa for a while. We coined the term “Jeep Frog” it was fun.

The last lagoon of the day was amazing. It was lagoon Colorado, look it up online. The water is all reddish brown and the salt ridges around it look like snow or glaciers. Grace and I decided that the red water was from dead puppies!!! It really is from a mineral in the water. There were tons of flamingos here as well. Our hostel was only ten minutes away by car. We had all heard lots of horror stories about how cold it gets on the second night and I think all pleasantly surprised by the hostel we stopped at. It was nice enough. We played cards again and then went to bed early, as we had to get up at 430.

I didn’t feel cold at all that night, except when I got out of bed to go to the bathroom. I would like to point out that I am still adhering to my flip flop philosophy; if I cant do it in flip-flops its not worth doing!!! That being said, my feet did get kind of cold!

More later….