To The Moon And Back

Our first trip out of San Pedro was an afternoon/evening tour of Valles de La Luna y Muerte - Moon Valley and Death Valley.

To briefly describe the tours, they either leave in the early morning (anywhere from 4:30 am to 9:00 am) with a pick-up at your hotel, or an afternoon departure that leaves from the main street.  Other than the late night astronomy tour which returns you to the hotel, the others return to the main square. So, at 3:00 pm, the main street fills with people waiting for their tour to Valle de la Luna.

The tours are relatively small (8 or 9 people), although the Valle de La Luna (which includes sunset) is very popular and one of the few with an afternoon start time, so I think we were 16.  The tour buses are comfortable and rugged, having to navigate dirt and gravel roads and navigate through streams. Layering is essential as the temperature variation during a tour can vary greatly.  The tour guides spoke mostly in Spanish, but would summarize in English.  On half-day tours the guide would set up a picnic snack.  Essentials in addition to the layering, was plenty of water and 50spf sunscreen.  

And, of course a camera for the eerie and spectacular scenery. 

 Below are the "Three Maria" rock formations that appear like different poses of the Virgin Mary - although our tour guide explained that there are now really only two as one of them broke and now looks more like a toad.  Note that the white color is salt, not snow.

 The area below is called the "amphitheater" due to its shape and acoustics.  Apparently Pink Floyd at one time considered doing a concert there.

 As dusk approached, we joined the crowds to watch the sunset.

It has been our intent to continue on the solar system theme with the evening astronomy, but the cloudy weather delayed it until the next evening.

The next day was uncharacteristically cold and windy, which resulted in a bit of disappointment for what we had planned.  Our morning tour took us to Baños de Puritama, thermal volcanic pools that terrace down a narrow canyon.  While it was clear and sunny, the wind was cold and strong (almost knocked me over a few times as we hiked back up to the parking area).  The pools were probably in the mid 80s but not enough to really keep us warm so we only soaked in the first one - not wanting to brave the run from one pool to the next.  But we enjoyed chatting with some tourists from Brazil and the setting was beautiful.

Here you can see just how windy it was!

The wind finally stop, so we were on for our stargazing which started at 8:00pm.  Because of the altitude and the lack of moisture in the atmosphere (moisture in the air distorts images), the stars are amazing particularly once you get outside of the minimal lights of San Pedro.  The tour took us to a residence about 15 minutes outside of town where an astronomer gave us mini-lecture followed by gazing through various telescopes.  Of course, this was all outside and it was FREEZING - actually probably well below 32 degrees.  

We had dressed as warm as we could, and there were also blankets provided as well as hot tea and hot chocolate.  It was brutal but we did get to see some amazing sights including Saturn.

Time to come back to earth, get warm, and be up early for our next adventure.