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	Pictures - Santiago - San Pedro de Atacama - Valle de La Luna > Salar de Atacama - Geyser del Tatio
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Salar de Atacama

The following day we went across the Salar de Atacama and up into the mountains. The first thing we were looking for was flamingos.

Salt Pans Flamingos tend to be found in salty, shallow water, and there are a few of these high salinity ponds on the Salar. They wade through the water looking for the tiny water creatures they feed on. Much of the Salar is a National Park so we were limited in how close we could get to the feeding birds.

So we were very happy when a group of them suddenly flew overhead. They were very close but also amazingly quiet. You couldn't hear flapping wings or bird calls. Flying flamingos

From the plain we headed into the mountains. On the way we stopped and I took this composite of the Salar de Atacama. Here its about 40-50 km wide and nearly 150km long.

In front of us was a small farm. We only saw a few places like this in all the time we were in the Atacama. Very little seemed to be growing in this part of the world. But if you looked carefully there would be small plants like this one (only a few cm across) nestling between two rocks. Beauty right under your feet.

We went quite high into the mountains that day, over 4000m (to think of the times I busted my gut climbing that high in Europe! In South America its a day trip in a mini-bus). Driving between the volcanos we were brought to some high mountain lakes.

I couldn't resist the opportunity to go for a paddle. The first time I had tried it at this altitude! Our guide told us that another tourist had been swimming in this lake before. But it was much too cold for me to try that.

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