El Tatio Geysers Sunrise: Atacama's Unforgettable Dawn Spectacle

I had hard times to be quiet frankly. First I wasn't aware for the temp to be so low it felt like minus 12 degrees celsius. I felt like the guide had connection to some of the group and I felt like I wasnt one of them. Its starts at 5 a.m because the geysers workd only in these hours. Its 4200 meters above sea level and its extreamly windy so come prepared! Use thermic cloth, as a long traveller i saw many geysers around the world and i wasnt impressed at all to be honest. The scenary along the drive is nice. They cahrged extra 15 usd to enter to park so keep in mind in cash in CLP currency. Breakfast was good.

It’s a really early start and the road to the geysers is bumpy at times, it was also really cold - minus 11 Celsius - because it’s so high up, so you need to wrap up warm. But it’s all definitely worth it to see this extraordinary sight. Stefanie, our guide, was excellent in explaining the different types of geysers and their activity. Great breakfast provided as well. Try to stay out of the minibus long enough to see the sun rise ovér the mountains, some of the best photos came then as the sunlight came through the steam from the geysers. We think a guided tour is a good idea for this visit because of the distance, the time you have to set out and the state of the roads, as well as the information that you get with a guide that you don’t get as a self drive visitor.

Anita was a great guide, you could feel that she lives for that and enjoys what she does every minute. We were exploring more than expected and also stopped at different viewpoints. Having breakfast with a view was great, it only lacked on vegan options, which is the only negative point of the trip.

Pablo was a great guide, he was knowledgeable and shared a lot of interesting information. He was trying to guide using 3 different languages so he was very busy going from group to group to repeat details. He did a great job at this except on the bus as he was at the front and we were at the back. The late breakfast was fantastic. Nicely set out on a table with a mountain view. Fresh scrambled eggs and coffee were prepared as well as breads, jams, fruit, meat and cheese. It was really great. The biggest downfall of this trip was the driver. He was driving way too fast for the (washboard) road conditions and we did not feel like he was always in control. We have him clocked at doing 87MPH. I said to another in the group that on the way out I felt like there were a few times that all 4 tires were off the ground, and their response was "I think you are right". On the return trip at one point the big travel van actually slid around a corner towards the huge cliff. Everyone gasped. I don't stress easy in a vehicle but I definitely felt unsafe with this driver.

never imagined such unique feature of nature however it’s very cold -10 degree at 4800 meter altutude

Fabi and Pedro were great company to see the amazing sites with. Pedro's engeijing personality added to the whole experience.

We had our own hire car and did an early morning drive up to El Tatio - we left San Pedro at 04.30 and arrive at El Tatio at 06.15 when it was just starting to get light. The c80km drive is hairy especially after the first 25 km. You need to be pretty confident to drive in the dark on the sometimes very rough and stoney road - it’s well signposted so that is not an issue. There are some sharp curves and some very steep parts of the road which you really only see when you return in daylight. Lots of white tour vans do this trip every day so you start getting overtaken by them 10-20 km before your destination. Ideally get behind another car and drive 80-100 metres behind them as they will show you the road and the odd bad pothole. Geysers are good in the early morning because the air temperatures are below freezing - around minus 5C on the day we visited though soon warms up as the sun rises. The geysers and surrounding scenery are beautiful - worth the trip but my wife would say take a tour the next time. We spend about 2 hours at the geysers. We stopped off at the Puritama hot springs at 09.30 on way home - the timings worked very well - book you tickets for hot springs in advance. We just paid at entrance for El Tatio geysers.

I took this excellent tour with Turismo Layana and the terrific guide was Christian. It was a very early predawn pick up and the company sent a text the night before confirming the pick up time from my hotel. It was over an hours drive out to the site of the geysers where the altitude was approximately 4,000m. The varied geysers were amazing and while standing beside bubbling boiling water and with many layers of clothing, warm hat and gloves, it was still extremely cold. We also made a stop at wetlands in crater lakes with an abundance of bird life including flamingos and even vicuñas ( relative of lamas) coming to have a drink. Such an amazing experience. Breakfast was set up on a table on another isolated stop out in the desert. We could make bread rolls with avocado, ham and cheese and tea/coffee and cake. We arrived back at San Pedro de Atacama about 11.30am after a totally unique experience

We didn't do a formal tour, we did self drive. The general view is that you should try to get to the geyser field at dawn and we did that. It was definitely worth it. The sight of the sun rising over the surrounding peaks as the fumaroles smoke and the geysers bubble is fantastic. The colours are spectacular as are the sounds of the bubbling and hissing. Things to be aware of: you need to buy a ticket online beforehand, and the website isn't the easiest to use; it's a reasonably long drive so you need to leave plenty of time; if you're not comfortable driving on ungraded dirt roads with a lot of narrow points and twists and turns, in the dark, take a tour; it's cold before dawn at high altitude, very cold! Most of these are obvious but a lot of people we saw seemed unprepared and it's such an amazing place it'd be a pity to not enjoy it for want of a pair of gloves! On the way back to San Pedro watch out for the flamingos and the amazing giant cacti. You may also like to combine your return trip with a visit to Puritama, a nice way to warm up and relax after the early start.

The guide was knowledgeable about the geysers and area. Sebastion, our guide did a good job answering questions. We stopped at other interesting sites on the way back. I live only a few hours from Yellowstone National Park in the USA, so the El Tatio Geysers themselves were not impressive.