However, no matter how nice the views were, Karina and I suffered a bit from the high altitude. The ride went up to a maximum of almost 5000m...and yes, the pressure is different there. Even though, we were drinking a lot as suggested by our travel book, we felt quite dizzy and weak arriving at the boarder of Chile. After a well organized "getting every passenger through the border control" (the bus attendant was on adrenaline to manage everyone; including 5 reallllly old people, who should not have traveled alone; at some point they were just bored and walked away out of the line to get some rest...not the best thing to do when dealing with customs :-) ), we were told how to walk to the city center. Sweating and tired, we were walking through the dusty streets of San Pedro in the middle of the Atacama desert (the driest desert in the world) in desperate search of an ATM (we couldn`t get some Chilenian Pesos in Argentina and heard awful stories about the very few ATMs not working or out of money in San Pedro). We were followed by two ladies from Hawaii (both in their late 60s we suppose) hunting for cash as well...they were really funny and we both tried to reach the ATM first (to get the potentially last available money). We met them by chance several times more during our stay here...maybe they stalk us :-).
After having money, we finally checked in in our nice hostal, which is run by an Atacaman lady...and we had the entire afternoon left.
So, of we went to the city center, which mainly consists of tour agencies, restaurants a church and the tourist information...but with a special charm.
After checking on some agencies, we decided to dedicate our afternoon taking the tour to the famous Valle Luna, the Moon Valley.
Our guide was picking us up at the agency...together with roundabout 15 Korean tourists. This was specifically funny, as we rarely met any Asian tourists during our trip so far...and now 15 :-).
We started off by driving to the Moon Valley national park, which is part of the Atacama Desert. Our first stop there were the so called three praying maries, a natural sculpture:
The white surface of the place is due to christalized minerals...including salt.Not considering the the white surface, the landscape is supposed to look very similar to the surface of the moon (tataaaaa, thats how the valley got its name). Thats why the NASA used this area for the development of all moon vehicles.
Next stop on our tour, was the so called Death Valley. What a name...but where does it come from?
So whats about the story, that two shepherds were killed there by rocks? Wroooong.
The true origin of the name has a linguistic background. During the conquership of the Spanish, the Catholic Church sent some priests to the country in order to "teach" the local communities their religion. When the Spanish came, they were well respected, as they were seen as gods. The Belgium Priest (speaking French) which came with them had big influence these days. And he was the one who brought the confusion: there is a only small difference between the Spanish word Marte (Mars) and Muerte (Death)...the valley looks very much like the the surface of Mars (again, NASA is doing some tests there), but if an influential Belgium Priest, is talking Spanish to the people with a sloppy french accent, Marte valley is quickly becoming Muerte valley. Marketing wise not a bad development :-).
Last but not least, we continued our tour to the most stunning part...watching the sunset and observing the Andes getting orange. No further comments needed:
Wow! Chile looks awesome :-) Glad you found some Pesos and did not need to fight with old stalkers :-)
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