Moon Valley tour begins

At 16:00 we started on the Valle de la Luna tour.

El Valle de la Luna (Valley of the Moon) is located 13 kilometres (8 mi) west of San Pedro de Atacama, to the north of Chile in the Cordillera de la Sal, in the Atacama desert. It has various stone and sand formations which have been carved by wind and water. It has an impressive range of color and texture, looking somewhat similar to the surface of the moon. There are also dry lakes where the composition of salt makes a white covering layer of the area. It presents diverse saline outcrops which appear like man-made sculptures. There are also a great variety of caverns.
The valley got its name due to a small depression of salt ground, 1,650 feet (500 m) in diameter, that exhibits odd sculptural shapes. These are the result of a sequence of transformations on the earth's crust caused by the folding of the watery ground underneath the salt lake. Because of its lack of humidity, there is no life here, which has turned it into one of the most inhospitable places on earth.

Our 1st stop in the Moon Valley was outside the Salt Cave. Here the guide tried to explain the geology of the valley but we hardly understood him in Spanish or even English. He had very basic geology knowledge and very poor English so we actually didn't get anything.Read more