DÍA 2/San Pedro

we headed out at 8:30 in the ideal sunshine and fresh breeze for an adventure by bike. armed with sunscreen and my hat (sarah the vineyard vines hat is really pulling its weight here), i set off on a muddy mountain bike with a hardcore system of shock absorbers- little did i know how necessary these would be. we pedaled off down the sand road and within minutes were in the midst of mountaings. we were heading towards la cordillera de la sal, a "mountain range" that is really salt-rock formations the color of clay formed with the help of volcanic gases- because of this the range is filled with fissures, holes, caves, gorges, and gaps of all sorts that we got to explore later along the ride. la cordillera de la sal cuts a very sharp profile into the horizon with its sharp-pointed, quick-in-succession peaks and the dark shadows cutting into them where the gorges run. (i took about 300 pictures over the weekend and not one succeeded in bringing back the breathtaking beauty that surrounded me).


i was just loving life, soaking in the scenery and the sun :) about midway along the ride we had to stop to ford a river with our bikes and shoes hoisted onto our shoulders- it wasn't as extreme as it may sound, the water came up to my knees- but the cold water was the perfect refresher.


what was more extreme was the biking itself- when biking on a sand road one occasionally runs into patches of deeper/looser sand where it is highly likely, no matter how fast or slow you try and go, that you will simply wobble and topple. matt informed me the trick is to "stand through the sand" but even this occasionally failed and i had to just waddle through the sand patch. our first destination point of the ride was an aymara/inca ruin site atop a plateau.


walking through the plazas and peering through gaps in the walls let me imagine the town as it would've been during its prime. everything was built with stones from the river nearby, and their smooth texture and grey-black-brown colors contrasted with the jagged and crusted salt formations around them. our next stopping point, after riding single-file into a gap between two clay-colored rock walls, was to clamber along and explore la cordillera de la sal from close-up.


after climbing up and ducking under rock formations for about an hour we hopped back on our bikes and raced back in just enough time for a jump in the pool before lunch. as nice as our hotel was, the pool was not heated and a ten second dip was about all i could take, but nonetheless it felt amazing and energizing after the morning's exercise.
lunch, courtesy of ciee, was delicious and included salmon and my favorite desert i've had in chile so far- ironically it is a peruvian desert, called suspiro limeño. sergio describes it as 'a la vena' meaning it's so rich and has so much sugar that it goes straight to the vein. SO GOOD, i plan on googling the recipe as soon as possible.
after lunch we visited the archaeological museum in san pedro, which has an insanely large collection of utensils used by indigenous peoples for inhaling hallucinogenic substances. there were also a lot of beautiful gold pieces and clay ceramics to examine.
towards the end of the afternoon we set off with claudio, our tour guide, toward valle de la luna. along the way we took several "japanese breaks" (claudio's term), which means we stop at a place with cool views/rocks/etc., everyone gets off the bus to explore and take pictures, and soon we get back on the bus. in this manner we got to see la valle de las muertes, the rock formations called las tres marias, and a big hole in the ground (another thing created by those crazy volcanic gases). we enjoyed our japanese breaks to the fullest by taking jumping pictures to symbolize the moon-like surface we were on (moon=no gravity, thus the jumping).the end treat at valle de la luna was the sunset. after climbing up the great dune (no small task) we had a great view of not only the valle itself, but la cordillera de la sal and la cordillera de los andes, including licancabur volcano, on the other side. the "crater" of valle de la luna is used by NASA to test their new lunar vehicles because it is supposedly very similar to the terrain of the moon, and it wasn't hard to imagine martian-like beings living there so i can see why.


watching the sunset was beautiful- we were in fact facing away from the sun because the most interesting changes in colors and shadows happen in the east on the slopes of the andes and the salt formations.