Millie continued her “I must be of service and surprise you” streak this morning by insisting on creating a breakfast buffet for us. When she gets in this mode it is mostly cute but also slightly annoying. She insists on doing everything herself and takes no direction, but then inevitably spills or wastes food, and then I have to clean it all up. I sat in bed trying not to micromanage. She proudly presented our buffet.

After breakfast, she called my mom to FaceTime. They had an adorable and very long chat, where they brushed their teeth together. This is the closest thing we’ve had to babysitting in about 6 months, and bought us the time to do our final bit of planning. Did you register that adjective? Final. We booked all our flights until home, which means we have our dates and locations locked in. I’ll need just an hour or so to book lodging, and then I’m done. As the “booker” for our trip, this will be such a weight off my shoulders. I can’t wait to just enjoy the remaining time without having the nagging “we really ought to plan and book some stuff” that has lived in the back of my mind for the last year.

We didn’t end up getting ready for the day until Noon, and then we set off to see some flamingos. We drove North this time on a new-to-us road. The first half was desolate and lifeless but as we got higher in altitude things got greener.

It was a beautiful, but boring, hourlong drive. There were hardly any other cars on the road.

We arrived at the flamingo lagoon and first saw a pack of wild vicuñas (cousin of llamas). Very cute!! We watched them for a while and wondered how they survive up here.

A minute later we started to see the water and the flamingos within it. Most of them had their heads underwater, presumably fishing and not snorkeling.

I don’t think I’ve ever seen a wild flamingo before so it was fun to watch them. How did these become a famous lawn accessory? The world works in mysterious ways.

We parked and hopped over the barrier. There weren’t any signs saying not to, and plus, we hadn’t seen another car for 15 minutes so it felt like we could get away with it. We crunched along the salt shores of the lake until a ranger came honking at us and told us to leave (in a nice way). Whoops.

We drove up the publicly accessible viewpoint where he had been watching guard and realized he had been watching us the whole time.

From here we drove back towards the “city”. Halfway through we stopped at the Puritama Hot Springs. As we pulled in, it felt impossible that there would be any water nearby, let alone warm and clean water.

We parked and walked down into the canyon. When we got halfway down we could hear water rushing and see the big green brush plants.

We got to the bottom and changed into our bathing suits. We got into the top pool which was the warmest. I didn’t bring my camera in or take very many photos, because I didn’t want to make any other swimmer uncomfortable.

The water was warm and extremely clear. There weren’t any strange smells like we experienced in New Zealand. We swam and giggled and probably interrupted the childless couples around us.

When we got out we were freeeeezing. The sun had started to set and the air up here is very thin and dry. This speeds up evaporation which makes things feel extra cold. We changed into our dry clothes as fast as we could.

We drove back to town. We listened to a Terrestials (Radio Lab for kids) episode about the moon. As they described moon rocks it felt kind of like we were driving on the moon.

We stopped for dinner in San Pedro. We have eaten at home for the last 3 nights, so this was our first time actually seeing the town. We walked through a market and a pedestrian street.

We had dinner at a restaurant recommended by our host. Nick and I ordered traditional dishes that were delicious (pil pil).

Millie drew our day, including this very accurate photo of us playing in the hot spring. Details to note: Nick’s mullet hair since he hasn’t cut it, mosquito bite on my cheek, Elsa on her bathing suit.