Well the effects of altitude did not diminish during the night. We both suffered from head aches and an in-ability to sleep - it made for a long and uncomfortable night.

The only redeeming feature of our night at Tatio was that I saw the southern cross for the first time on this trip - at least the first time that there could be no doubt.

We were up and dressed by 6:00 am as the first of the tour buses arrived for the dawn show for which the Tatio geysers are famous.

What is that show?

At dawn the air over the geyser field is still, so that the steam plumes from the geysers and hot pools drift straight up looking like huge white columns. As the air begins to stir with the first heat from the sun those same columns start to drift covering the entire area in a cloud of steam. It really is quite surreal. The other feature of the morning that is surreal is the 30 or so tour buses and the 2-300 tourists wandering around amongst the steam.

Having seen the show we headed for San Pedro and lower altitude. You can see how our perspective has changed, we now consider a place like San pedro at 8000 ft to be lower altitude. The 80 kms from the geysers to San pedro was an all gravel road some of it very rough and other parts very steep. I kept waiting for something inside the Tiger to fall apart, but so far everything seems to be intact.

San pedro is a town of about 3000 inhabitants (and it feels like at least that many tourists), maybe one paved street, lots of dust and buildings of red mud brick. We will stay the day/night here in the hope of recovering from last nights ordeal.