I out of the blue remembered a valley that I visited some 11 years ago with my uncle.
The valley is on top of a geothermal hot spot and is shaped in such a way that winds don't get in there unless they blow from a certain angle, so the weather is almost always still and heat is good.
Through that valley runs a river that's about 40°C (104°F) and forms a nice hot tub at the end.
I'm planning to take a few friends there over the Easter vacation, but since I hadn't been there for so long I wasn't sure of how warm the river would be in the wintertime. And I didn't want to drag a group of friends there only to find out that the river wasn't warm enough.
So this morning I woke up early and took an hour walking towards that valley.
And it was even more awesome than I remembered.
Here we have the top of the valley, everything around it is dry and dead.
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But the river comes out of nowhere it seems. many hot small streams gather and form the river as you go down the valley.
The water comes from small holes like these where boiling hot water flows out.
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But the boiling water also attracts algae and brings up minerals and silica from the depths of the earth.
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I can't wait to bring my friends over there and have a nice relaxing day laying in a geothermal pool and drinking beer.
Just a side note, I did not mess with colors at all, just to show how vibrant this really is.
More on my flickr http://www.flickr.com …r/sets/72157623743765998/
