Barbara was our guide for the afternoon’s tour, to Yerbas Buenas and the Rainbow Valley. Yes, the valleys around here are dead abundant! We started by going back towards Calama on the highway and through a pass at around 4,000 metres. Then we turned off onto a secondary road, where we were lucky enough to see a guanaco, a wild llama. We went on a photo frenzy while he totally ignored us!
We saw another three as we drove along, but weren’t able to stop.
Eventually we came to Yerbas Buenas, or good herbs. I asked Barbara how the place got the name, given that there aren’t any plants in the area other than cacti, but she couldn’t tell me. What it lacks in plants it makes up for in cave art. The place is basically a rocky outcrop used by passing caravans as a resting place, way back before the Incas.
Since they didn’t have TVs or Smartphones, the travellers would spend their evenings carving on the rock walls. Some of the art was quite sophisticated, others were just stick figures.
We also got up close to cume, a cactus that you see a lot as you drive through this area. It has very sharp spikes to protect itself, but the spikes are softer in the mornings. Guanaco are aware of this and they come along first thing and attack the base with their feet to break off bits of the plant. It also has the nickname “Mother-in-law bush” because it is so spiky.
From there we continued to Valle del Arcoiris, or Rainbow Valley. This is an area where the rocks are different colours depending on when and how they were formed. If you want the geological explanation then google it, because I don’t know my magma chamber from my tectonic plate.
While you can’t really make a rainbow out of the rocks, there were brown, red, blue, green and purple varieties forming a magnificent landscape. Which we took full advantage of as we stopped for a glass of wine and some local delicacies on the way out.
From there we hightailed it back to Mars to watch the sun set over the Andes.
Good night!
Steve and Diane on Tour 