EXPLORING THE ATACAMA DESERT
Thanks to the expertise and knowledge of Jordan and Kayli and the entire team at Knowmad Adventures, we have ended up in a fantastic place, Tierra Atacama. It is beautiful and the sunsets are unbelievably gorgeous, what I’d call layered pastels. Located just outside the town of San Pedro de Atacama, the property is elegantly designed and landscaped, the food is excellent, and the rooms are comfortable. Included in the room rate is the opportunity to select one or more excursions each day.
We are at the high end of the demographic here (older, that is), and while we are in reasonably good shape considering, we have opted to do just a couple excursions during our short stay. I am not overly fond of high altitudes, but so far haven’t had any issues here at about 9,300 feet. We did nix a 6-hour excursion leaving at 6 AM to travel to geysers at 13,000 feet some distance away.
Given all of that, we had a wonderful morning with our guide, Mauro at the nearby Valle de la Luna or Moon Valley. There were just four of us plus the guide. We stopped at several places to look around and take pictures and then embarked on a 45-50 minute walk or hike (what you call it depends on your perspective; for me it was a hike) up to several lookout points. 
The sand is several different colors from light tan to dark tan to almost black to matte gray, and has been sculpted by the wind and the infrequent rain into ridges and waves and valleys. In the distance, you can see the mountains and several volcanos, one of which is currently active.
Walking in from the parking area, we slogged through loose sand (just as hard as walking on loose sand on an ocean beach) and then began climbing up harder packed surfaces, not really paths, but already well trodden. We saw no vegetation from this point on, and it was beautiful and almost eerie and utterly quiet. The only sound was the wind. 
Note: All photos ©JWFarrington (some rights reserved). I wanted to include more photos, but some of them were too large for this site.
