Chile - Valle de la Luna

My friend Hernan has so far never failed to mesmerize me with beautiful postcards from Chile. This one shows a magical place called Moon Valley, near a village called 'San Pedro de Atacama'. In the words of Hernan, this area is visited by a lot of tourists as you can go to Salar de Atacama, where you can find salt in its natural state beside a lagoon with falamingos, all in the middle of the Atacama Desert. There are also geyzers in this area ... and the clearest sky with myriads of stars.

Thanks a lot to Hernan for the beautiful stamps and Chile's coat of arm.

This is from Wikipedia : San Pedro de Atacama is a Chilean town and commune in El Loa Province, Antofagasta Region. It is located east of Antofagasta, some 106 km (60 mi) southeast of Calama and the Chuquicamata copper mine, overlooking the Licancabur volcano. It features a significant archeological museum, the R. P. Gustavo Le Paige Archaeological Museum, with a large collection of relics and artifacts from the region. Native ruins nearby now attract increasing numbers of tourists interested in learning about pre-Columbian cultures. Tourists also visit for other popular activities including sandboarding and stargazing, with the views of the stars from the Atacama unrivalled across the continent.

Salar de Atacama is the largest salt flat in Chile. It is located 55 km (34 mi) south of San Pedro de Atacama, is surrounded by mountains and has no drainage outlets. To the east is enclosed by the main chain of the Andes, while to the west lies a secondary mountain range of the Andes called Cordillera de Domeyko. Large volcanoes dominate the landscape, including the Licancabur, Acamarachi, Aguas Calientes and the Láscar. The latter is one of the most active volcanoes in Chile. All of them are located along the eastern side of the Salar de Atacama, forming a generally north-south trending line of volcanoes that separate it from smaller endorheic basins.