Stripes

Ok, lots to tell! This morning the owner of the hotel walked in on me in my undies and socks. He's hard of hearing too, so it took a while for him to get it. I think once he got a glimpse of my striped undies, it registered. Also! I forgot to mention La Bruja de Iquique. This crazy older lady walked up to us on the beach, read our palms and then told us our fortunes. She took some money from me (let's not discuss how much, exactly, but just know it was a lot) and destroyed it with some sort of liquid from her breast and a bone she pulled out of her bag. I had to throw a piece of it into the ocean as an offering to the goddess of the sea. And as much as I didn't want to touch it, I conceded. She gave me a seed to keep in my wallet and wrapped it up in a bill. Apparently, I'll always have money as long as I have this seed. Maybe it'll grow into a money tree! She kept asking if I had confidence in her, which, of course, I didn't, but now it just seems like it's better to believe than not.

I met up with Tom from Cusco on the tour to La Valle de La Luna this afternoon. I also ran into Tomas and Solenne, the two fun French folks I met on the Cañon del Colca trip.

The Valley of the Moon is called that because, well, it looks like the moon. There are strange white mounds of earth that looks like mountains from the moon. There are pockets of salt that look like ice. Sand and red clay. It's extra-terrestrial. And there's a section where the earth is striped and looks like Mars. Cool, weird rock formations and a cave. Tom and I went down into the cave and it was made of salt. This time I licked the wall. We hiked up into the dunes and watched the sunset. It was pretty amazing. The sun dips over the mountain and then the valley comes alive in colors.

Oh, and parties here are all called clandestino. The bars close at 1 am and then everyone makes his way to the hidden party. A house in the middle of nowhere with live music, bonfires, dancing, drinking. The town published some sort of law outlawing drinking and dancing after 2 am. It's funny. The parties aren't all that clandestine. There's one taxi driver who carts everyone to the party. All the cops woud have to do is follow him to figure out where the party is. Guess it's just out of sight out of mind. Still they call them clandestine and there's a big mystery about it. San Pedro's population isn't quite 5000, so in reality, there aren't that many spots the police would have to search.