Valle de la Luna

yesterday we slept in and spent a nice morning in the plaza reading and soaking in the sun before heading off to El Valle de Muerte y El Valle de la Luna. No one quite knows how Death Valley got its name... there are three different possibilities. The first is that the man who discovered it thought it looked a great deal like Mars, and called it Valley de Marte (Mars) and it got changed over time to Muerte... The second is that the valley is where people go to die, and the third is that it's called this because nothing can grow there. All three seem plausible to me. Regardless, it does look incredibly similar to pictures I've seen of Mars.

Stunning views, red rocks and large dunes accompanied us as we trekked for two hours from the ridge down into the valley and then followed the path the river (which is no longer there) created as it made its way through the rocks millions of years ago. Once again, the area used to be a lake and the water was forced under when the tectonic plates collided oh so many years ago. The result is that many layers of the rock are made of salt, and in some places it is so thick it looks like snow in the riverbed. The salt also creates this amazing phenomenon which our great guide Oscar calls the Symphony. Because oxygen got trapped in the rock (very porous) underneath the salt, somehow when the sun shines on the rock, it heats the oxygen and creates millions of tiny little gas explosions which sound like pops and crackles (rice crispy-ish). It's truly amazing to sit there and have the canyon walls talk to you. Even more so that it's been happening for millions of years.

There was also an amazing cave that was created out of compressed salt which turned into quartz. It was fun to enter and realize that crystals were holding up the ceiling of the cave.

After we wound our way through the Death Valley, we headed over to Valle de la Luna where we climbed to the top of the mountains to watch the sun set. Moon Valley also deserved its name! There were incredible sand dunes, a salt ridge and the ring of Andean volcanos around the edge. Others sat to watch the sunset, but I continued walking to the furthest outpost on the Cordillera de Sal (salt mountain range) until I was the only one aside from the ranger, looking out at the entire 360 degree view. I have been appreciating the sun here. In cities, the sun doesn't change the colors as much as in the desert, where it lights up and alters everything every moment of the day. I stood there watching the mountains change from gold to pink to blue as the sun went down. Afterwards, we trekked to the other peak and then flew down the volcanic black dune and headed back to San Pedro.