Valle de la Luna

Today’s tour guide was Vicente who originally comes from Concepion in the south of Chile. We had two pleasant young American travelling companions called Chris and Abby, a cardiologist and a biologist specialising in algae, which she monitors in Lake Superior. They live in Minnesota. 

First we had breakfast watching the sun rise over the mountains, with a lively and knowledgable commentary from Vicente. Then off we set to the famous Valle de la Luna (Moon Valley), a stunning landscape. It really is otherworldly and almost completely barren, no wonder it was named after the surface of the moon. It’s a mixture of stone and sand formations, including huge sand dunes. We could see expanses of salt lying on the surface in the distance. We walked up the sandy trail to a high lookout point, it became increasingly hot and the earth dropped away alarmingly at the side of the path into a deep ravine. Apparently it can be very windy but not today. NASA has used the Valle de la Luna to test autonomous rover prototypes for movement, drilling, and sample collection because it’s the area on earth most like the landscape of Mars. Back at the minibus we set off to Ayllu, a tiny traditional community, where we walked round the vegetable gardens and adobe houses. James was encouraged to pick a pomegranate off the tree (you do it by twisting, not pulling) and we all enjoyed eating the seeds. We saw a huge variety of fruit like quinces and pears, and vegetables including asparagus, which they grow very thin and tall here. We had lunch on a shady terrace; Sopapaillas with the freshest salsa I have ever tasted. We tasted arrope de chañar, a thick, dark sticky syrup made from the fruit of the chañar tree (Geoffroea decorticans) and then a dessert which was a mousse made with arrope, which we sprinkled with crunchy dried quinoa seeds. Back in San Pedro we visited the pharmacy because James got water in one of his ears when we were white water rafting in Puerto Vargas, and it’s feeling sore. This has happened before on holiday so hopefully we can nip it in the bud before it gets worse.