Moon Valley, and Death Valley
This page describes our travel to Chile. We visited Santiago, briefly, but spend most of our time in and around San Pedro de Atacama.
The trip started out a bit arduous, with a trip of over 24 hours from Los Angeles, USA, to Santiago, Chile, and then to San Pedro de Atacama. But it was all worth it.
Timing was perhaps not optimal, because it was winter, and almost none of the hotels and hostels has heating. But going in the summer is probably also not ideal...
Anyway... read about our adventures, below.
Without the slightest problem we slept in until 9h30. We needed it. I have to say, we never really have problems sleeping in, but today it was especially easy. In fact, I thought it was even hard to leave the warmth of my bed. Unfortunately, breakfast in Hotel Tambillo is served until 10h00, so we sort of had to...
However, as soon as we left the comfort of our beds, we were wide awake. Maybe again an apparition of the elusive state of mind we were in yesterday--the I-am-continuously-sleepy-but-can-never-sleep state. This time is felt more like "I can not wake up, but I am always awake".
It was a rather minimalist breakfast, if I had to give it an artistic description. A few crackers, two pieces of bread, and instant coffee. But it sound quite a bit better with this artistic name. Although it is also clear that this breakfast will never reach the iconic status of for example the Campbell cans by Warhol.
And because we never have the time in Los Angeles, the breakfast was followed, quite naturally, by my hair being cut by my wife. April had brought the trimmer from LA, because in Chile they use 220 volts, allowing our Dutch trimmer to finally work properly, unlike in LA (with its 110 volts). Afterwards, I took a quick shower, and April followed, only to discover that the hot water was finished. We waited half an hour, and April could take her shower.
At 2 pm we started our first trip outside of San Pedro de Atacama, with Cactus tours. We went to Valle de la Muerte, and Valle de la Luna. First we had a hike through Valle de la Muerte (Death Valley). The valley is called Death Valley because when the Belgium priest Gustavo Le Paige arrived here he thought the valley looked a lot like the surface of the planet Mars. He called is Valle de la Marte, but did not realize that Marte is masculine (el Marte), and the local people thought he pronounced it a bit awkwardly, but really meant to say Valley de la Muerte (Death Valley). All the same, it is a breathtaking view you get here, with, between the two walls of the valley, several enormous sand dunes, where people "sandboard" (snowboarding of sand dunes). From the top of the west wall of the valley we moreover had a view on the Andes, with the Chilean mountain Licancabur, and the Cerro Zapaleri on the border of Chile, Argentina and Bolivia.
Afterwards, a short bus ride took us to the rim of the Moon Valley (Valle de la Luna), where we would watch the sun set. The rocks take on amazing colors during sunsets. A nice hike through the Atacama salt flat led us to some rocks that we scaled to see the sunset. Unfortunately, most of the sunset, it was rather cloudy, and much of the colors were hidden from us. The clouds however did take a very nice, and bright red, color. But, well, we came for the red rocks not red clouds.
After our arrival back in San Pedro, we booked tours for the next 3 of the 4 days. This cost us US$280! Yes, it is going to be a expensive trip, but very nice too.
We have to try to sleep now, because tomorrow we are going to El Tatio geysers, and we need to wake up at 4 am.
