During July of 2006, Izzy and I packed up our things and headed south, all the way to Chile. We went as a last study abroad trip before finishing our undergrad degrees and moving to Spain. One of the excursions organized by our program coordinator was a long weekend in the Atacama desert. We took an 18 hour bus ride overnight from La Serena up to San Pedro de Atacama. The bus made intermittent stops to pick up more passengers and let some off. The main stop where we took a long break was in the small coastal city Antofagasta. After a few more grueling hours and a small cookie snack with hot tea, we arrived to San Pedro. We wandered through town and quickly found our hotel. It accommodated everyone that elected to come north. Another bus was waiting for us to take us out to the Valle de la luna(Valley of the Moon) in the desert. The drive out to it had some breathtaking views.
The Valley of the Moon is part of a large natural reserve known as the Flamingo National Reserve. Over the next couple of days, our tour guides would take us all over to see the various parts of the reserve. The name of the valley came from the appearance of the area to that of the moon and the large white salt deposits also added to the moon like appearance. The area was carved out over time by wind and water erosion. Even though water erosion formed part of the landscape, there were parts of the area known to be some of the driest on Earth, as they hadn't seen rain in hundreds of years. Our bus parked near the edge of the formation and we climbed up and walked across the large dune to get a good view. Our guides told us that there were opportunities to sand-board nearby if we wanted to. We elected not to as our being out of shape tired us out just doing the small hike we did.
From the Valle de la luna, we returned to our lodgings for the night. We had a fire outdoors and ate there before the electricity was shut off. San Pedro was a quaint town and we met some other people from Europe who had come just to see the desert and sand-board. We enjoyed the evening hanging out with friends. The rooms were passable but the wind outside howled throughout the night and we stayed bundled up in the blankets to keep warm. Skipping summer for winter came with some downsides but it was definitely worth it.
