Desert, Lakes!, Flamingos, Vicuñas, and the Moon

So, I am finally getting to see stuff. Good stuff. Yesterday morning I walked a couple of miles to visit some ruins (where the locals tried to fight off the spanish in the 1500s) and then up a high, high hill to a scenic overlook. The views were amazing. The desert has become very interesting in this area--there are large hills that have eroded somewhat and have amazing shapes. It is really incredible. I will try to post photos at the next location. There are also huge sand dunes. Yesterday afternoon I went on the "Valley of the Moon" tour. First we hiked at the top of these canyon like rock forms, we saw the huge sand dune and I thought the guide was kidding when he said we would go down the dune but we climbed down a few rocks and then ran down hundreds of feet of sand dune. We contined to the bottom of the canyon like structure. Then went to the valley of the moon area. Evidently it was named after man landed on the moon and described the surface of the moon and the locals felt the description was eerily similar to the landscape here. We stayed to watch the sunset over the Salt Mountain range and then turned around to see the Andes in all shades of pink and red.
It only got better this morning when I left at 6 a.m. on another tour. There is evidently, in this vast desert, a small river that goes to the Pacific and so here in San Pedro there are a few trees here and there and as we drove through the desert this morning there were lots of dried out tumbleweed looking sort of plants. There arent really many towns around, and few paved roads. But we drove about 45 minutes out of town to the large salt "lake". It measures something like 60 x 30 miles but there is very little water--mainly large rough shaped things that resemble rocks but are dried up salt. So, in the middle of this huge desert, in the middle of the salt flat, there is a small amount of water and there are scads of flamingos. We saw Andean flamingos and Chilean flamingos and they are really beautiful and elegant and it was a treat to see them. There are tons of tours around here but our little van of ten was the first to arrive so we had the flamingos all to ourselves to admire.
We then returned to the van where we headed up to about 14,000 feet above sea level to see two beautifl lagoons--these are not salt water and I guess get water from the nearby snow capped Andes. The lakes were bright blue and just beautiful and they are there in the middle of this desert and it is extraordinary. We saw a vew vicuñas drinking at the lake (they are in the llama/alpaca family). They are more delicate looking than llamas...slimmer and really, in my opinion, much cuter. We also so a variety of birds. The excursion was great and it made me so glad that I came. My mad race through the north/mid part of Chile (in order to meet my friend, Sang Kyoung in patagonia on the 19th) is somewhat tough (I have a SIXTEEN hour bus ride tonight) but really it, so far, has been worth it. I really hoped that today I could have posted photos as it was spectular...or in the words of Frank DeBiasi...stunning.