My journey to San Pedro involved changing buses in Calama, where I had a 2 hour wait. I got to San Pedro just after 6pm and im pleased it was still light. The hostel had given me a map of the area as I had to walk to the hostel. Typical me had booked the hostel furthest away! But apparently it was the best! It wasnt that far as San Pedro is only small but with a heavy backpack it makes it harder. Like in Arica everything was made out of the mud bricks and on the way I passed some really poor looking houses and some that were falling down. When I got to the hostel it didnt look much better from the outside. There was a bamboo fence with a wooden door. Once inside it looked better. There were 3 houses within the fence. Each had 2 bedrooms, a bathroom, a kitchen and a lounge area. I was in room 1 with a girl called Carolina from Brazil. She was a teacher as well.
That night the hostel was having a BBQ, so that was perfect for me. I t meant I didnt habve to go out to try to find food and I would get to meet people. The owners were really nice people, the man was a chef and therefore was incharge of the BBQ and the lady made sure we all had a drink and were kept warm by the campfire in the garden. The BBQ was very similar to the BBQ's in Africa in that all you get to eat is meat. No bread rolls or burgers, just meat. Plates of meat would keep getting passed around the circle. Steak, chicken and sausages were all on offer. We had to keep the plates moving otherwise the cats (of which there seemed to be hundreds) would also help themselves!! The BBQ ended at midnight when most people went to bed.
The next morning I treated myself to a layin as I didnt have a bus to catch. I got up at 10am and had a shower. I then went into the main square to have a look around. I found a nice restaurant. I was too late for breakfast so I ended up having beef steak with fried onions, chips and a fried egg. I sat outside in the sunshine and I had a companion come join me. A street dog came and sat next to my chair. He layed down in the shade. So when my dinner came I rewarded him by giving him the fatty bits from my steak. He seemed pleased so I gave him a few chips as well and my egg yolk. I had made a friend! I had another look around before going back to the hostel as I had a tour booked.
When I got back to the hostel I noticed on the whiteboard it said "Dont forget to change your clocks to summertime!" Well I hadnt forgotten, I never knew! If the clocks had gone forward that would mean I would have missed my tour. I went to find the owner to ask her, unfortunately she said they had gone forward. However she also said 2:30 was really early to be picked up as it didnt start until 4pm usually. She rang the company for me to check and it did start at 4pm not 3pm. So as it was actually 3:30 and not 2:30 I still had time to get to the bus. The bus company obviously didnt know about the time change either when they made my ticket! So panic over I made it to the tour office on time.
I was doing a tour of the Moon Valley. There were 10 of us on the tour, some spoke English and our guide was called Dav'id. We drove to the enterance of the park and paid 2000 pescos to get in. We drove a little bit further before getting out to start our walk. David explained that as it was windy we would have to be extra careful of of dust and rocks blowing.The walk started at the bottom of a cliff. The cliff was covered in white shiny bits. David climbed up a bit and got some down for us. The white shiny stuff was salt. He gave us a bit each. We then had to stand in silence and listen to the rocks. We could hear them creaking and cracking. He explained how the salt expands when it is hot and contracts when it is cold, which makes the rocks split when it expands and that is what we could hear cracking.

We then walked a little bit further to a cliff full of jagged rocks. David told us this is where NASA tested their robots for the Mars misson. Where we were walking would have been a river many, many years ago. David then explained how the Moon Valley was formed. The Moon valley has volcanoes on one side and the Andes mountains on the other. Salt would get washed down the mountains with the rain and stay at the bottom. When all the water evapourated and it became a dessert it also became a salt flat in parts. Then when some of the volcanoes erupted and the Andes pushed inwards the flat plains were squashed and the Moon Valley was formed. It is called the Moon Valley because at night the whiteness of the salt in the moonlight and the rocky landscape makes it look like the surface of the moon.
We carried on walking and at one point climbing! We passed ridges in the cliff that once would have been waterfalls. David showed off in one of them by climbing up the waterfall ridge. We came to a point where we couldnt get any further so we turned around and went back to the minibus.

We then drove to a view point where we could see the landscape for miles around and take pictures. Next we went to see the three marias. It was a strange shaped rock but here someone was supposed to have seen the virgin Mary three times, so it was named after that. Lastly we drove to the top of a cliff so we could look down onto the Moon Valley from above. We stayed there to watch the sunset, it was very windy on the cliff and very cold when the sun had gone down. We then got back in the minibus and went back to San Pedro.

I went to the internet in town before going back to the hostel. At the hostel we had two new roomies, 2 guys from New Zealand. Me, two more girls and the boys sat chatting in our lounge area for quite a while before going to bed. In the morning I got up, checked out, wandered around the town for a while and got something to eat before going to the bus station. I was catching the overnight bus to La Serena.