Flamingos and donkeys.

Up at 0530. In bus at 0615. Viewing Chilean and Andean flamingos at 0800 at laguna chaxa. Fab. Oh and avocet and plover as well. Have never seen flamingo fly. Very cool. The Chilean flamingo is the one with the redder neck and black wing tips. Their necks get more red the older they are. The Andean flamingo is the pale pink one.
Coca tea for breakfast before off up to 4300m to view beautiful lakes Miscanti and Minique where we saw James flamingo before lunch in a nice little place called Socaire. Then on to Tocanao to look at a church and some handicraft shops in which we found the most phallic statue of a pair of mating donkeys ever so we sent the rest of our trip group in to see it. They were very impressed but strangely no-one bought it and we could manage the Spanish for "we don't want it but can we take a photo" so you'll just have to trust us. We felt we added a lot to the trip for our group!
So having recovered our sensibilities we made it back to town by 1530 and felt obliged to have possibly the biggest ice cream ever. We did manage to ask for two spoons!
Have to go pack bag now for 0330 trip to geysers tomorrow - so looking forward to it!