The star of San Pedro and a regular Saturday in town. Desert chronicles. Day 3.

My day 3 in San Pedro started a bit later than the day before. However, as I am going to some hotsprings, I set myself to shave my legs, with this cold! Why if I put my swimsuit in the luggage just because didn't I shave just in case too? A mistery

After my beloved breakfast, I went outside to wait for my van. It came almost inmediately and 28 kilometres afterwards we arrived to the hotsprings. Meanwhile, I did some videos on the road and laughed alone seeing a lot of San Pedro cactus and remembering "Chrystal Fairy and the magical cactus", in your face Michael Cera! Really, if you haven't seen this movie, go watch it.

Truth be told, my going to the hotsprings only happened because of the snow and the few choices I have left to do, it was kind of pricy too. So, it isn't in my "must list" of Atacama. However, I have to admit that the water was nice and you float easily. The hard part was to go out to the cold.

Back to the van, I had a deja vu to my days in Peru, a 500 metres road, 80 metres steep at 3600 metres over sea level. Lovely. But I made it.

I did it.

Back at the hostel, I ate the rest of empanadas I had left and grabbed my stuff to go to one of the top spots of San Pedro de Atacama, Moon Valley, where I tested myself against my fear of heights, twice.

I walked through that narrow path in the heights. I deserve a medal.

Our first stop was on the big dune, that honours its name, and walked through the narrow path in the photp. Each step was worth it, the view is amazing. It's unbelievable that a place like this exists, it seems to be from another planet, like Gustavo Le Paige imagined it when he named it Moon Valley. Back to the edge of the dune, Lorena, our guide, explained us about the minerals in the area, how that place used to be an ocean millions of years ago (thus the salt accumulation, it is the remaining of all the evaporated water), the salt mines that supplied the copper mine in Calama that was the biggest of the World. Anyway, the mines were closed duing the dictatorship by order of the goverment.

Behind me is the big dune. For conservation purposes, it isn't allowed to walk over it anymore.

We went to another spot in the valley, "the three Marys", called that way by Gustavo Le Paige. He was a Jesuitic missionary from Belgium and did a lot of work in the area, founded the archeological museum, built the town church and it's buried in the town. It also seems that he stole quite a bit of archeological objects and saw three Virgin Mary figures in these rocks. I think he put some of that cactus on his tea. He also baptized this place Moon Valley because this is how he imagined the Moon landscape would look like.

The three Marys. I have to say that after seeing this photo too many times, and with some imagination I can see something of what Le Paige saw.

We walked inside the central crater that is almost completely white but always staying inside the path, a key thing to the place conservation. The Sun is going down so we start a sort of pilgrimage to another spots some kilometres ahead, Coyote Stone, which is called that just because it looks kind of like the ones in the roadrunner cartoons.

The central crater. All the white you see isn't snow, it's salt.

Apart from the amount of people in this spot, the place is breathtaking, it's like a small version of Grand Canyon (or maybe it's just my anxiety knowing that in a couple of months I will finally accomplish my dream of knowing that place). It's my second vertigo test. I stood on the edge of a cliff to appreciate the vastity of the place, just like the Lion King, and Patricia, my German friend from the hostel, took me some photos where you can see a very uncomfortable me.

Vertigo test numer 2. You can actually see my fear.

The Sun gets closer and closer to the horizon, the light turns purple and it's time to put a coat on. When I was in primary school and I was told how the temperature changed in the desert, I just couldn't believe it. Now I experienced it first hand and I told my 20 years ago self "it was true". I know that we are about to leave this spot but I'm amazed that everything turns purple and gold for a few minutes.

The air being purple and the Licancabur volcano reigning over everything.

Just as soon as I was back at the hostel, someone knocked on my door. It was one of the hostel owners inviting me to a barbacue that night, Uruguayan gal is there. Besides, the lonely traveler takes the chance to make some new friends. When the night at the hostel was coming to an end, Patricia, my friend from this afternoon said that there was a clandestine bonfire. I had also been invited to an also clandestine rave by the guy I met on my first night in town. The rave plan was tempting but everyone preferred to go to the bonfire, so there I went.

The heat of the cold winter.

Why did I use the word clandestine twice in one paragraph? Because there aren't any nightclubs in San Pedro and there are no licences given for this purpose. That's why, a couple of restaurants have these "secret"parties on their backs that always end when the police gets there.

Anyway, bonfire with a full moon, the cold is extreme, but between the fire and the drinks it's tolerable. Around 2am, one of my hostel mates and myself went back home while a large group of people was arriving, probably from the rave. *The following day Patricia confirmed that, and also that the police called off the bonfire only a few minutes after we left.

*You can read the original version of this post in Spanish here.