Today, Monday, May 2nd, we did two excursions. With our guide, Cristobal, we drove to the Moon Valley, which has a huge resemblance to the surface of the moon (so we are told) but more importantly has a huge reservior of rock salt, that was deposited millions of years ago. It was mined by locals until several decades ago, but is now dormant. The white material that you see is salt, but given such little rainfall has been here for millennia. Before you feel too sorry for us in the boiling heat, we are now in the autumn season where the morning temperatures are in single digits and we might get up to 25c in the sun. And in the afternoon the southwest breeze starts to blow which keeps it all pretty cool. Do you think that looks like the World Cup trophy next to Douglas?
After a light lunch we set off with our guides again to an area called Guatin to hike the Cactus Canyon, with the Rio Puripica coursing through it, and which was a 4 km hike at 3,000m elevation through stunning scenery, but the introductory course to free climbing was not advertised at the beginning. We (well, Kirsty and Douglas) loved it, and it was really quite spectacular scenery. When we set off, we thought it would be just another hike over rocky hill and dale, but as we crested the next hill we then descended into this canyon where you could hear the water roaring as it coursed down. We scrabbled over the rocks along the rushing water, and it all felt very wonderful to be walking along a watercourse that sits in the middle of one the driest places on earth.