We woke up to the sunrise over Valle de la Luna. As we had arrived there in the dark the night before, I had no idea there would be a huge canyon right in front of Jules. Dad and I had some fun taking photos with the spectacular view of rocks tilted by blobs of buried salt buoyantly pushing up through bedrock.
We took a billion photos and ate a nice breakfast on the cliff edge that included a favorite...bananas!!
We drove into San Pedro de Atacama, sent a few postcards to friends, and asked the tourist center for advice on what to see in the area. We also stopped by the anthropology museum, which I found interesting at first, but then tired of seeing a lot if the same types of things over and over (tablets for inhaling hallucinogens, pots, knitting needles, gold adornment jewelry, etc.). Who want to see someone else's broken, dirty dishes.
Our first stop of the day was to see the many types of flamingos they have residing on the salt flats (Salar de Atacama). At first it seemed to be getting cloudy which made it hard to see very far. It gave the illusion that there was nothing but salt flat, stretching to the ends of the earth.
There was a trail winding through the flats, with signs about the landscape, the flamingos, and the salt. The path was made entirely of salt and had a nice texture on the feet, according to my mom.
We passed a small pond where they showcased the main food of flamingos, brine shrimp (Think sea monkeys.) Fun fact: The brine shrimp are what give the flamingos their pink coloring
At the end of the path we saw the flamingos eating and hanging out in small groups. I couldn't help but wonder if these birds were kept there in a sort of "free-range" zoo, it just seemed kinda... zoo-ish?? There was a fair amount of tourists, but we all eventually pressed towards the visitors center and cars, as the wind began to pick up.
We then decided to go to a lookout over high lagunas in the salar. Unfortunately, the road was closed due to snow, but maybe it was good that it was closed because what we earlier thought was just clouds building on the horizon was actually a large sand storm that made it very hard to see and blew Jules all over the road. (The reason for our sunglasses!!)
Instead, to escape the wind we decided to do a hike in the slot canyons of Quebrada del Diablo. Mom was feeling a little ill so we rested and read a little more about the area while the wind died down.
Arriving at the mouth of the canyon seconds before a large bus of tourists, we rushed to beat the crowds. They still gained on us, so we took a detour in another less traveled tributary canyon.
We hiked up of another of the lesser branches and climbed the ridge to a natural viewpoint we discovered.
From there you could see over to the river and all of the spidery connections that made up the canyons. It was pretty windy and it felt scary walking on the thin ridge next to large cliffs of (thankfully!) not-so-hard dirt. We descended and walked off heading farther into the center of the Quebrada del Diablo. There was a large area that had huge natural "half pipes" that we pretended to skate on, running up and down the faces. These areas felt like they had been untouched for quite a while, with only a couple sets of footprints every once in awhile. There was also a wall that looked like it had been draped in mud and was gradually wearing away.
We returned to the car in a round about way; Mom found these two chunks of gypsum and enjoyed very much holding them in her hands and having us hold he skirt and wave it around while singing the dum dun duuuuun duun of that song when the bride walks down the aisle.
As we spent so much time in the canyon, we missed the sunset over the Valle de la Luna but all was well as we had seen the sunrise there and we continued on, driving back to a spot similar to the one we slept at the night before so I could cook dinner. I cooked these weird potatoes called lengua de vaca (cow's tongue) that was long and purple and pretty funny looking.
(Photo by Stéphane Guisard)
Wells and I conked our pretty fast, tired from a long day of museum going, flamingo watching, and slot canyon hiking. We drove into the night through thick fog finally stopping on the side of the road at the intersection of Ruta 5 (Pan American Highway) and 40-something.
