Valle de la Luna - Atacama Desert

High upon the salt plains of the Wild Chilean frontier with Bolivia a brave, and some may say foolhardy explorer set out in search of the Valle de la Luna (Valley of the Moon).  Well ok, it was me and I was with a bus load of people but it doesn't hurt to have some drama, got to keep the readers involved or I might get cancelled.

Anyway, today was a late start, about 4pm, heading out into the salt plains of the Atacama, just outside San Pedro de Atacama where I am staying.  The name Valle de la Luna comes about because the explorer who discovered it thought it looked like the surface of the moon.  He wasn't far wrong, except maybe this was a bit too red .......

First off was a hike up a sand dune, only a short one to look out over these valleys.  As everyone created the top pretty much everyone was making various "wow" comments in whichever language and I'm sure some choice words were among them

Next up was the Tres Marias, now you're going to have to squint a bit at this but basically the idea is that the one on the left is her in prayer, the one in the middle is her looking up at the sky and unfortunately the left one broke off some time ago so that's just a stump.  I can kind of see it but it's a stretch.

My favourite however was the "Uno T-Rex"

Which was right next to it.  One thing to note, all of these were formed by natural means, rock formations, wind erosion, no human interference.

Next up was the Salt Valley, a long canyon of amazing rock formations and when you stood still without a sound you could hear the rocks contracting as they cooled down from the heat of the day.

Last up was Death Valley, which many believe was because the explorer didn't speak good Spanish.  He thought it looked like Mars and so wanted to call it "Valle de la Martes" but people misheard and thought he'd said "Muerte".  Apparently if he did think it was Mars he wasn't far wrong as apparently NASA was there a few years ago testing some of their Mars explorers.

All that was left then was to get to the viewing point and wait for the sunset.  And althought the sunset was pretty......

Watching the Andes mountains change colour as the shadow moved across them was even more so......

So that was today.......  It is truly amazing some of the formations that nature provides us in different parts of the world.

Tomorrow it's off to the Tatio geysers, which also means a 430am departure time and freezing cold temperatures as these are the highest in the world apparently.  At 6am when I will be there the temperature will be around -15C - and I'm doing this for fun!!