San Pedro de Atacama

Yesterday I sent a short message to my parents telling them that I didn't have time to write a long message because I was too busy doing awesome stuff in San Pedro.  San Pedro is a tiny town (2,000 people) in the middle of the Atacama Desert.  In the past 10 years or so it has really developed into a popular tourist destination because there are many activities and sights that you can't do or see in many other places.  The actual town is quite touristy, filled with restaurants, hostels, tour agencies, and tourist shops with unauthentic, brightly colored souvenirs, but the appeal of San Pedro are the plentiful, reasonably-priced desert excursions you can go on.

Moon Valley - named for its apparent similarity to the surface of the moon

The day after I got here I went to see Death Valley and the Moon Valley - both of which have spectacular scenery.  The dunes and cliffs and rock formations are really impressive.  Here are some pictures which can show you better than I could describe:

Me overlooking a magnificent valley

Death Valley - sand dunes and mountains



The next day I went on another excursion to a saltwater lagoon.  I had never been in a body of water that with such a high salt concentration that you could float effortlessly.  It was a really weird sensation!  You could lay on the water and relax as if you were on a raft!  Or you could put yourself in a vertical position in the water and hang out and talk without treading water as if you were just standing in a pool, but your feet weren't touching the bottom.  The water was really cold - in the low 60's - and even though I hate the cold it was definitely worth it for this experience.  But you had to be careful, because the salt concentration was so high that it really burned if you got it in your eyes.  Or people who had really dry skin or small cuts also felt a burning sensation from the salt.

 

Me on the salt flat

After the lagoon we went to a salt flat.  It might not sound very impressive or interesting, but it was actually quite neat to see and walk on a giant bed of hard salt.  Afterward someone told me that salt flats are really cool for doing photography tricks because depth perception is mostly lost on them.  Apparently people bring special props, such as toy dinosaurs, which they place on the salt, and then stand really far behind them and pose as if they were fighting a dinosaur, and it looks like the person and dinosaur are the same size.  Too bad I didn't know about that at the time!

And these are the two least interesting excursions I did, the two most interesting will each get their own posts later today.  In the meantime, enjoy some pictures of the sunset!