Valle de la Luna, San Pedro

The other tour I took in San Pedro was to the Valle de la Luna, essentially into the centre and along the spine of some of the crinkliest of the desert scenery thereabouts. This tour started in the afternoon so as to give us the opportunity to watch the sunset from a long a ridge.

It turns out the crinkles are in fact sedimentary layers of volcanic ash and petrified salt, that were pushed up out of the floor of the desert a few million years ago and subsequently saw water and wind erode them into their current forms. There were a few impressive sand dunes, and a cave where you could head the ridge crinkle as it contracted in real-time due to the subsiding of the daytime heat, and some weirdo rock formations, until finally we climbed up a giant sand dune and long a ridge to find a perch from which to watch the sunset. This was the point at which San Pedro turned from pretty cool to very awesome for me. The geysers had been pretty bizarre, but this very informative and very spectacular excursion really took things to the next level.

Herewith, some photos from the Valle de la Luna tour. As always, click to enlarge.