Day 4 - Valle de la Luna (Moon Valley)

You wake up around 9:00am, immediately wonder why this hostal is called 'the house of the rising sun,' because it appears to be anything but that. There is not a soul around this early, and even the owners are not awake, therefore the kitchen is closed. Nonetheless, you eat the usual breakfast of bread and fruit, then get ready for the day. You head out with your good friend into town around 9:30. Apparently the whole town is still asleep because there really isn't much going on. Only about an 1/8 of the shops are open, so you browse those, pickup some groceries for lunch and dinner as well as some postcards, and head back to the hostal. After writing your postcards and making lunch, you and your friend head back into town hoping it will be a little more awake this time considering it's 12:30. Good news! Everyone is finally up, and the shops and markets are buzzing. You spend the next few hours browsing, realizing everything here is 3-4 times as expensive as it is in Santiago. Therefore, you only buy a shell necklace that you really really like because you were able to successfully bargain the shopper keeper down to half the price he originally offered. Your feeling really good about your Spanish at this point. You send your postcards off, continue exploring town and see a group of bee hives out in a field. The next corner turned there is a little old lady selling honey - it is rather inexpensive, so you excitedly buy some (because the honey in Santiago is really expensive, therefore you haven't bought any since you've been here)! Later that day you have it on crackers and it's delicious! Before the rest of the day continues, your good friend suffers a brief lecture from one of your tourmates (the one from London with the most painful piercing laugh ever). Apparently, your good friend set 2 shirts on the wooden post of her bed while organizing her things to go to the bathroom that morning while the girl was still asleep - not even close to touching her, mind you. And this girl took it upon herself to let your friend know how completely rude it is to put stuff on someone else's bed, and to just not do it ever again because it is SO rude. And she tells both of you - that just so you know for future reference it is just so rude and inconsiderate to put stuff on other people's beds. Especially in the morning when they are asleep. Lame!! It is as if she knows you are younger than her, so she feels the need to teach you lessons about staying in hostals. (Mind you, this is one of the people that I honestly couldn't believe how rude she was. She was very blatant, crude, and definitely not quiet when she showed back up at the hostal at 3 in the morning every night!)

A picture to sum up this hostal without words

The streets of San Pedro

Afternoon comes around and your off with the tour bus again to visit some of the sights around San Pedro. The first stop of the day is by a small mountain and the tour guide tells you that your going to be doing some rock-climbing and trekking. Your very excited because you love these kinds of things! The instant you start though, you realize that in your vocabulary this is not rock-climbing and definitely not trekking. It is walking up a rocky hill...but I'll tell you what, the rest of the group are all very inactive and in the end were all very proud of themselves for making it up the hill. Once 'in the mountain', the tour guide has everyone be very quiet and just listen. You hear very loud cracks in the rock that sound exactly like the sound when the snow breaks right before an avalanche. It's rather creepy and sounds as if all the rock is getting ready to come down, but the guide explains that it is only because of the drastic change in temperature between night and day. The rock is cracking as it changes temperature. Your then given 30 minutes to explore on your own so you pick the highest peak you can see, and go for it. You get there and actually 3 of your tourmates followed you amazingly enough. Granted, it took them twice as long to get up and they looked like they were about to die, but you still give them credit for making it up. You jaunt down the mountain and are officially named the 'mountain goat' by the rest of the group. The group says to you, "you play soccer, you run, you climb mountains, is there anything you don't do?" You reply saying, "I just take care of my body, I've never had a drop of alcohol, I've never smoked, and I exercise, you'd be amazed at what your body would do too if you took care of it." The group just stares at you with looks of non-understanding and don't say anything in reply.

View from the top of the little peak I climbed

The next adventure for the day is what the guide calls 'caving' through the salt caves. Crystals of gem salt can be seen here, caused by the effects of high pressure and the absencee of humidity. This also is not what you would exactly consider 'caving', but is still pretty fun. You walk on this trail through a few parts that are a little dark, have to do a little bit of scrambling on all fours, and once again the group is all excited about the adventure they just went on, and won't stop talking about how much fun climbing, trekking, and caving are. You keep quiet, even though you really want to try and explain to them what these terms really mean.

The final stop is a tour through Moon Valley. The Three Maries are the first sight, and they are three rock formations as the result of intense erosion processes. They are composed of gravel, clay, salt, gems, and quartz, and are approximately one million years old. They're supposively named that because the one on the far right is kneeling hailing the Lord, the one in the middle is standing hailing, and the one on the left is laying down hailing (Which is competely a made-up scheme for tourism - but whatever). The last structure is the 'broken heart' which is named that for obvious reasons. You finally get to the main tourist attraction of the park - the ampitheatre and moon valley. You hike the sand dune along with your 1,000 closest tourist friends to watch the sunset over moon valley. It is very relaxing and beautiful.

The broken heart

The Three Maries

The Ampitheatre

This is where we watched the sunset

To top the day off, you return to your primitive hostal to make another batch of soup and fries. The last experience of the day occurs when your friend is washing up dishes and you are in your hostal room. There is a knock on the door, you open it, and one of the hippy guys with dreads that you shared mate with the night before is standing there. He asks if you have any tea because he really needs some, you tell him you don't, and he asks if anyone else in the room does. You tell him your the only one there, and you don't know if anyone else does. He then says 'Hector, he has some in his brown backpack. (side note: this is all in Spanish)' You tell him that Hector (the tour guide in training) is not staying in your room. He looks at you disappointedly then proceeds to hug you really tightly, kiss both your cheeks, keep hugging you while swaying, then tell you sorry for bothering you, and turns and leaves. Random! Later that evening you walk out to the bathrooms, and he just happens to be sitting around the fire and says to you 'Hello, my love (in English)', you smile and laugh, and keep walking. When going back to your room, you take a little detour as to not have to pass him again.