Monday, September 16, 2019

In the morning I was feeling much better and I was ready for our trip to Moon Valley ( Valle de la Lune ).   Our driver picked us up at 7:15 am and then picked up a family of 4 from another hotel.

We drove up one of the nearby hills and watched the sunrise

as we ate the breakfast that the driver had prepared for us.

We got to know the family from Wales that had joined us.   The father was an Anglican priest and an estate lawyer, their daughter was in Chile for 3 months of training for her course in linguistics and their son had just finished his mechanical engineering degree.

From here we went to Valle de la Luna ( Moon Valley ).   There is actually a very bumpy and rocky road that we took from Coyo to the trailhead near Moon Valley that isn’t shown on google maps.

Since Moon Valley is in a desert climate, it had been shaped by years of wind erosion which had created many dunes and modified rock formations.

We drove a little further away to see the “ Three Marias “ which had been sculpted by the wind.

From there we went to a small rural restaurant for a traditional Chilean snack, before returning to the hotel where we spent the rest of the day relaxing.

We are at elevation of 2400 meters ( 8000 ft ) and since the air is a bit thinner at that elevation, I have found that my energy level and my appetite is slightly reduced.

We ate a very nice dinner at the restaurant in the hotel and by 8:30 we were ready to go to bed.