Endurance
As I write this, I’m sitting in my hotel’s little restaurant in San Pedro de Atacama, sipping a complimentary glass of sparkling wine after another long tour day. Frank Sinatra is crooning in the background. An older couple two tables away is playing dice, laughing so hard that she snorts. It makes me smile—this small moment of warmth and humanity at the edge of the desert. Cozy. Real. Exactly what I needed after days of early mornings, cold, dry air, and relentless sun—the kind that leaves your lips cracked and your nose rebelling. I’ve been guzzling water just to keep up. Because truthfully, I’m exhausted. Again.
And I laugh to myself, because this new way of life—constant travel, creating, moving—sometimes feels a lot like training for a marathon. Endurance. I thought I had it. I didn’t train for this trip specifically, but I’ve always been active—running, strength work, long hikes, healthy routines. Yet being here, at high altitude in the driest desert on Earth, sometimes feels like running the actual race—the kind where every step takes effort, your breath grows heavier, and your heart pounds faster than it should for the pace.
Each dawn brought another early wake-up, another test of limits—and the geysers would prove to be the most striking of them all. And yet, I’m still here, showing up. Because maybe endurance isn’t just about pushing harder—maybe it’s learning how to keep moving with grace, even when you’re tired.
The Desert Tests You
I’ve spent the past three days in the Atacama Desert—an extreme contrast to the mist and glaciers of Patagonia and the wild green cliffs of Rapa Nui. Here, the air is thinner, the sun unrelenting, the silence so sharp it rings in your ears. Even breathing feels like work. The quiet, simple landscape strips away every distraction until all that’s left is stillness—and maybe, a kind of peace.
On my first night, I looked up. Under the glow of a supermoon, we peered through telescopes at the stars—Saturn and its rings, a perfect diamond suspended in blackness. The moon itself looked close enough to touch, its light washing the Milky Way from view. I thought of Rapa Nui’s night sky—the same vast universe, just a different vantage point.
Days of Extremes
The next morning brought salt flats and flamingos—pink streaks moving gracefully across blinding white. A place so bright and dry it felt like another planet. The flamingos thrived there, living proof that life endures even in the harshest places.
Later that afternoon, we explored Moon Valley—a landscape so lunar it almost felt make-believe. At one point our guide asked us to close our eyes and just listen. Beyond the wind, we could hear the faint crackle of salt, the land itself breathing. It was beautiful and isolating all at once, the kind of silence that seems to stretch endlessly through the peaks and valleys, the sun unrelenting overhead.
By the third day, the terrain softened a little. Higher elevation, cooler air, patches of green where water met rock. Both breakfast and lunch were picnic-style—breakfast among a quiet manmade grove of trees, and lunch later at a simple rest area with tables, restrooms, and other travelers unpacking their meals. The group didn’t speak much English, but somehow it didn’t matter anymore. We laughed, shared food, learned to communicate without words. Maybe that’s another kind of endurance—staying open even when connection takes effort.
Salar de Talar — Chilean Andes
Where Fire Meets Ice
Before dawn on my final morning, I bundled up in every layer I owned for the Tatio Geysers—still taking altitude medication to adjust to the thin air. The temperature hovered around freezing. The landscape looked otherworldly: a wide, gray-brown basin ringed by a mountain range that included one active and several dormant volcanoes. Steam drifted across the geyser field from dozens of vents and bubbling pools, rising in slow, ghostly ribbons against the pale morning light. Beneath the surface, the water was scalding hot—but along the ground, thin sheets of ice shimmered near the vents, making each step a careful one.
Our guide explained that some of these geysers might go dormant next year, while others that are quiet now could suddenly awaken. I looked out over the field—some craters alive with steam, others lying quiet—and thought how much that mirrored us. Maybe endurance isn’t constant motion. Maybe it’s knowing when to rest, when to pause, when to let the steam cool before rising again.
Becoming
On the long, quiet drive back to the airport, the desert stretched endlessly in every direction—raw, vast, and patient. I watched the horizon shift in slow motion, the sunlight washing over the empty land, and thought about everything this trip had asked of me.
I thought about my old life—the corporate grind, the “achiever” label that once defined me—and how it still follows me, whispering that I’m not doing enough. But here, surrounded by this raw, steady landscape, I’m learning to redefine achievement.
Maybe endurance is part evolution: pushing through exhaustion and loneliness to find the stillness underneath. Maybe it’s trusting that growth takes repetition—like training for a race, like revisiting the same sunrise again and again until something inside you clicks into rhythm.
And maybe it’s this—sitting in a quiet restaurant at the end of another long day, Sinatra still playing somewhere in the background, realizing that even rest is part of the race. Learning when to move, when to breathe, and when to simply let life unfold—one sunrise, one step, one story at a time.
Follow my journey on Instagram @odiseabyemmy. For more photography from Chile’s wild landscapes, visit Emmy Photography.