Security measures in Chile to stave off tourist accidents

The biggest tourist attractions in northern Chile, the geysers of El Tatio right in the heart of the Andean Mountain Range, have already been marked to avoid the risk of accidents.

Oscar Santelices, head of the country’s National Tourism Service, informed all paths and trails have been properly marked with signs written in two languages. Authorities there have also opened new and larger parking lots.

“Those security measures were indispensable,” Mr. Santelices said, “because the recklessness of some and the ignorance of others have led to deadly accidents on the premises.”

He added that some visitors have endured severe burns or have fallen into the small boiling craters whose temperatures reach way over a hundred degrees Celsius.

The El Tatio geysers are a one-and-only spectacle where boiling water spurts out of the mountain rocks. They are located some 60 miles southeast of Calama and roughly a thousand miles north of Santiago de Chile.

To watch those boiling-water craters, travelers are supposed to stay overnight in San Pedro de Atacama, some 60 miles from Calama, wake up at daybreak and get to El Tatio when the early morning cold of up to 12 degrees Celsius below zero makes contact with the boiling water and squirts powerful fuming columns.

The El Tatio geysers comprise a geothermal field of over sixty square miles.