{"id":1819,"date":"2013-02-23T02:34:29","date_gmt":"2013-02-23T02:34:29","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.capetocairo2010.co.za\/?p=1819"},"modified":"2013-02-24T02:37:06","modified_gmt":"2013-02-24T02:37:06","slug":"23-february-2013","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.capetocairo2010.co.za\/?p=1819","title":{"rendered":"23 February 2013"},"content":{"rendered":"

We left San Pedro de Atacama today with the intention of heading to Iquique about 200km from the Peruvian border that we are wanting to cross tomorrow. <\/p>\n

Because we had heard so much about the beauty of the El Tatio<\/a> Geysers only 90km from San Pedro we decided it would be a good idea to go to the Geysers first before heading to Iquique. We queried the road conditions with the staff at the hotel before leaving because we knew from the map that the road to the geysers was dirt, and they advised us that the road was \u201cjust fine\u201d!!\u2026<\/p>\n

\"DSCF0234\"<\/a> <\/p>\n

So we head off and at first the road IS fine albeit dirt that is hard packed. Within 20km from San Pedro however,the road has deteriorated into an absolute mess..huge rocks, craters, thick sand and to add to it all, we were rapidly climbing in altitude into the Andes. After about 45 minutes of this Jax has a headache and is feeling nauseous, so I take a quick look at our altitude and it turns out that we are now over 4000m and still some 50km from the Geysers! Crap!<\/p>\n

\"Days<\/a> <\/p>\n

The GPS Graph of our ride today..<\/em><\/p>\n

Turning around wasn’t an option because the road had been so bad, so we pushed on in the hope that the road would improve, we would see the geysers and then head on with our journey! Unfortunately, it didn’t improve,the altitude peaked at 4522m and it took us over 2 hours to do the 90km to the geysers. Although the altitude definitely impacts negatively on concentration and the physicality of managing a fat BMW plus pillion plus luggage on roads like these, I must say that although I would have LOVED the KTM today, lil Fatty delivered the goods Just Fine\u2026In fact, I am certain she lost a few pounds today and has started to look a little more attractive to me!!<\/p>\n

\"SAM_3125\"<\/a> <\/p>\n

\"SAM_3131\"<\/a> <\/p>\n

El Tatio Geysers..<\/em><\/p>\n

Notwithstanding how difficult the ride and the conditions of today were, we are both over the moon about the fact that we did this ride. It was truly a once in a lifetime experience to witness this part of the world. Its mountainous desert surrounded by snow capped peaks. Very little grows up there but the air is crisp and the landscape littered with Vicunas<\/a> (a type of lama) and endless beautiful vistas.<\/p>\n

\"DSCF0248\"<\/a> <\/p>\n

\"DSCF0257\"<\/a> <\/p>\n

\"DSCF0288\"<\/a> <\/p>\n

Our ride today was only some 220km but when we got to Calama, a town only 100km from San Pedro at about 16h30, we decided to not push on any further. We are spending the night here and will depart early tomorrow for the Peruvian border.<\/p>\n

\"Days<\/a> <\/p>\n<\/p>\n<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

\"SAM_3134\"<\/a> <\/p>\n<\/p>\n

El Tatio Geysers..<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

We left San Pedro de Atacama today with the intention of heading to Iquique about 200km from the Peruvian border that we are wanting to cross tomorrow. Because we had heard so much about the beauty of the El Tatio Geysers only 90km from San Pedro we decided it would be a good idea to […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1819","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-theamericas"],"aioseo_notices":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pXwN4-tl","_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.capetocairo2010.co.za\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1819","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.capetocairo2010.co.za\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.capetocairo2010.co.za\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.capetocairo2010.co.za\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.capetocairo2010.co.za\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1819"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/www.capetocairo2010.co.za\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1819\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1820,"href":"http:\/\/www.capetocairo2010.co.za\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1819\/revisions\/1820"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.capetocairo2010.co.za\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1819"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.capetocairo2010.co.za\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1819"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.capetocairo2010.co.za\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1819"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}