Today I went on a tour to visit the Salar de Atacama and two lakes in the altiplano.
Our first stop was Laguna Chaxa, a salt lake populated by flamencos and some other birds. All around the lake, there are fantastic shapes of salt and stone that developed when the lake's water level dropped.
As in the Salar de Uyuni, they also found lithium in the Atacama salt flats. Lithium being an important resource in battery manufacture, both countries are keen on exploiting these deposits, destroying the awesome natural environment in the process. As our guide today put it, some of the donkeys the Spanish brought are now wild, and some went to work for the government.
The next stop, Lake Miscanti, was a beautiful, impossibly blue mountain lake surrounded by snow-capped peaks.
Its sister lake, just a few hundred meters away, is Laguna Miñiques. While Miscanti often freezes over in winter, Miñiques does not because it is fed by warm underground water.
All around the two lakes, we could find volcanic stones. Given a little patience and a steady hand, it was possible to balance them on their tips. Some even managed to stack them:
Close to the lakes, there was a huge area with holey stones. The way this came into being was that the hot lava erupted by one of the nearby volcanoes mixed with the snow-covered softer rocks in the area, and was thus was cooled down rapidly. When the ice and soft rock were washed out later, they left cavity-riddled stone behind.
At the end of the day, we also paid a visit to the church of Toconao. The church has a roof and staircase made of cactus wood. While pretty, the problem with cactus wood is that it grows incredibly slowly, only about 1 cm per year. This is why today there aren't too many cactuses around and cactus wood isn't used for construction anymore.
Our first stop was Laguna Chaxa, a salt lake populated by flamencos and some other birds. All around the lake, there are fantastic shapes of salt and stone that developed when the lake's water level dropped.
As in the Salar de Uyuni, they also found lithium in the Atacama salt flats. Lithium being an important resource in battery manufacture, both countries are keen on exploiting these deposits, destroying the awesome natural environment in the process. As our guide today put it, some of the donkeys the Spanish brought are now wild, and some went to work for the government.
The next stop, Lake Miscanti, was a beautiful, impossibly blue mountain lake surrounded by snow-capped peaks.
Its sister lake, just a few hundred meters away, is Laguna Miñiques. While Miscanti often freezes over in winter, Miñiques does not because it is fed by warm underground water.
All around the two lakes, we could find volcanic stones. Given a little patience and a steady hand, it was possible to balance them on their tips. Some even managed to stack them:
Close to the lakes, there was a huge area with holey stones. The way this came into being was that the hot lava erupted by one of the nearby volcanoes mixed with the snow-covered softer rocks in the area, and was thus was cooled down rapidly. When the ice and soft rock were washed out later, they left cavity-riddled stone behind.
At the end of the day, we also paid a visit to the church of Toconao. The church has a roof and staircase made of cactus wood. While pretty, the problem with cactus wood is that it grows incredibly slowly, only about 1 cm per year. This is why today there aren't too many cactuses around and cactus wood isn't used for construction anymore.
