Today we slept in until after 9am and went out for a leisurely breakfast. Being a bit tired of eggs every morning, I had a cheese and mushroom quesadilla. Oh my goodness, it was delicious. I ordered a second one but fortunately the waiter didn’t understand because in twenty minutes I was feeling full (and that would have been very glutinous of me).
John and I then wandered around the picturesque town of San Pedro de Atacama.
A large group of women (some with children), were staging a peaceful demonstration. A few police officers watched on the sidelines.
The women were holding signs, yelling out slogans, playing music and dancing. It looked kind of fun. I think John was worried that I was going to join them.
We picked up a few groceries at the mini market and farmer’s market. Of course we had to pop into a wine store that sold many of Chile’s delicious wines. We chose a bottle made from grapes from the coast that cannot be purchased outside of Chile.
Like in La Paz, you still have to watch where you step because there are so many dogs running around free. Most of them wear collars.
This one reminded me of Eyore for some reason.
Simone, the resident cat decided to make herself comfortable on John’s lap when we were resting in our hostel courtyard.
In the afternoon we went to the tour company office for 3:30pm to start our tour to Death Valley and Moon Valley which are near San Pedro de Atacama.
We had booked our tours through a company called Grado 10. Our guide was Marcus and this company uses a large truck/bus for their tours, very similar to the one we were touring in in Africa.
We first went to Death Valley and had a short but steep hike up to the overlook. Marcus explained the various geological processes that resulted in the landscape. We then had a 30 minute hike through the valley where our bus was waiting for us with some refreshing cold juice to drink.
Next was Moon Valley which had some really amazing rock formations and a massive sand dune that looked like a dam.
We had a much longer hike uphill through the rocks and sand to a pinnacle where we rested and watched the colours change over the somewhat lunar landscape as the sun set.
Then we hiked back to the bus and returned to San Pedro at about 8:30pm.
Back at the hostel I made nachos and we opened our bottle of red wine and had a relaxing evening in preparation for a 5am start the next morning.