Colchane

We reached Pollequere hot springs and parked our vehicle near the springs. There was steam from the hot springs that we could see in the moonlight. We used the lights of the vehicle to look around the place and decided to park it just behind a low wall there to protect from the strong winds of the altiplano.
Hristo was quite tired and it was quite cold outside so he decided to sleep immediately while I kept looking at the stars and was tempted to go out and take pictures. In the end, the draw of the stars was too much. I took out my tripod and took some lovely pictures of billions and billions of stars shining over the salt plains. The moon was about a half full and the light was too much to capture the beauty of the starry night that the eyes saw. It was stunning!! Magical!! Words or pictures just can't describe what the eyes saw. It was a clear dark sky, there were so many stars that there was hardly a spec of darkness where I couldn't see a star or a shining dot. The milky whiteness from the moonlight added to the mystic effect of the night. As I moved around with my tripod taking pictures of the stars from different places and angles, I thought I saw mysterious flashes beyond the horizon on the Northern side behind the hills. They almost looked like flashes of lightning during a storm but without the lightning visible. Just hazy flashes of light beyond the hills. I thought I must have imagined it.
In the night it became quite cold and both of us woke up to take out warmer jackets and fleece to wear. By now, the moon had set behind the hills towards the South and the only light was from the billions of stars in the sky. It was an undescribable spectacle. Niw, even the Milky Way was visible directly above the vehicle but it was too cold to step out and try and take pictures. It was then that we both saw those mysterious flashes again and we saw them at the same time. So, we were sure now that it was not a work of imagination and that there actually were something going on. The vehicle was pointed towards the North and we saw these light flashes in that direction.
After about an hour or so of sleep, it became extremely cold. It was about 2 am. We could feel it was below freezing and even with our winter jackets and fleece, we were feeling cold inside the vehicle. We turned on the engine and the heater for about 30 min. It became nice and cozy inside. The windows cleared up and we again saw those mysterious flashes in the sky but still not even a spec of clos anywhere. It was a bit unreal to see flashes in the sky with no clouds anywhere. It was so bright with the lights of the gazillions of stars that I was able to take a picture of the night sky with even my cellphone.

After that, we slept for a few hours more when it again got very cold by around 5 am. I turned on the engine again for another 30 min and we were able to sleep for some more time.
It was in the morning only that we were able to confirm that it had been below freezing in the night when we saw ice on top of even the hot water springs where they were shallow.
It had been an uncomfortable and freezing cold night but, one, that I would not exchange for anything else in the world. It had been the most amazing and magical places and nights I've ever experienced.Read more