We had to be up and ready by 8am even though it was unlikely the car would arrive before 10am, so after we had packed and eaten breakfast, we headed out into the sun to try to get warm. Best estimates put last night at something less than minus 10 degrees.
The kids of the area quickly swarmed around and we played games with them. First we taught them ¨Twinkle Twinkle Little Star¨and then Ïncy Wincy Spider¨then we played hopscotch (which they already knew), had piggy back races and kicked around an empty bottle. It was then that Anna suggested we play Duck, duck, goose - but they had their own version, llama, llama, alpaca! It was so cute, we had a brilliant time. Anna, Amy and I ended up sitting in the sun with the smallest ones on our laps while Nida and Matt played a kind of skittles game with the kids.
As you might have guessed from all these activities, 10am had come and gone with no sign of the car. Archie told us it looked like we would have to spend another night there, so we had lunch, unsuccessfully tried to light the fire with damp dried moss (which is what they burn) and anything else to hand, then rugged up to read in bed.
At 3pm the car arrived, having been fixed overnight, and Archie told us we were going on. We quickly packed up and first stop was the red lagoon. This is where the flamingos breed in Summer, but even being winter, there were flamingos to be seen. The red colour of the lake is due to the plankton in the water which is what the flamingos eat, and also what gives them their red colour. It was really exciting to see them, although it was incredibly windy and pretty cold by then.
We continued on past a few more lagoons, including one where we got quite close to young flamingos (they were still grey) and saw several volcanos etc. The scenery is rather spectacular, although Anna couldn´t help comparing the sight of lagoons and volcanos to New Zealand and found she really rather prefers home.
The original plan had been to take a road which would be a bit easier on the newly repaired car, however it was much longer and it was getting late so we went the tricky route. This meant at one stage we had to walk down a rocky hillside in the dark, went through a small salt flat and ghost town in the dark, and generally missed out on seeing a big chunk of countryside.
We couldn´t make it all the way to the accomodation originally destined for us, so we got into our alternate accomodation at about 9.30pm. They served us up a fantastic meal - at about 10.30pm - but by then we were all too tired and cold to enjoy it. Add to that, we have to get up at 5am tomorrow to see the sun rise over the salt flats and we are not really happy campers.
It was lovely playing with the kids this morning and they especially loved it because the tourists never stay around long enough to do that, and the flamingos were great but the rest of the day has been a bit of a let down.
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